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NOT  GUILTY 


NOT  GUILTY: 

A  DEFENCE  OF  THE 
BOTTOM      DOG 

BY  ROBERT   BLATCHFORD 


NEW    YORK    :    BONI    AND 
LIVERIGHT  :  1918 


Dedicated  to  my  Old 
Friend  &  Fellow  Worker 
W.T.WILKINSON 


PAGE 

THE  AUTHOR'S  APOLOGY i 

THE  LAWS  OF  GOD 5 

THE  LAWS  OF  MAN 10 

WHERE  Do  OUR  NATURES  COME  FROM  ? 14 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MORALS 23 

THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE — WITHIN  Us 37 

ENVIRONMENT 56 

How  HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT  WORK 77 

GOOD  AND  BAD  SURROUNDINGS 88 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE 95 

FREE  WILL 108 

SELF-CONTROL 122 

GUILTY  OR  NOT  GUILTY? 130 

THE  FAILURE  OF  PUNISHMENT 139 

SOME  OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED 150 

THE  DEFENCE  OF  THE  BOTTOM  DOG 158 


2054120 


f 

The  Author's  Apology 

rHIS  is  not  a  stiff  and  learned  work,  written  by^a  profes- 
sor for  professors,  but  a  human  book,  written  in  human- 
ity's behalf  by  a  man,  for  men  and  women. 

I  shall  not  fret  you  with  strange  and  stilted  language, 
nor  weary  you  with  tedious  and  irksome  science,  nor  gall  you  with 
far-fetched  theories,  nor  waste  your  time  in  any  vain  word-twist- 
ing nor  splitting  of  hairs. 

A  plain-dealing  man,  speaking  frankly  and  simply  to  honest  and 
plain-dealing  readers,  I  shall  trust  to  common  sense  and  common, 
knowledge  and  common  English  to  make  my  meaning  clear. 

I  have  been  warned  that  it  is  easier  to  write  a  book  on  such  a 
theme  as  this  than  to  get  people  to  read  it  when  written.  But  I 
am  hopeful,  and  my  hope  springs  from  the  living  interest  and 
deep  significance  of  the  subject. 

For  in  defending  the  Bottom  Dog  I  do  not  deal  with  hard  sci- 
ence only;  but  with  the  dearest  faiths,  the  oldest  wrongs,  and  the 
most  awful  relationships  of  the  great  human  family,  for  whose 
good  I  strive,  and  to  whose  judgment  I  appeal. 

Knowing,  as  I  do,  how  the  hard-working  and  hard-playing  pub- 
lic shun  laborious  thinking  and  serious  writing,  and  how  they  hate 
to  have  their  ease  disturbed  or  their  prejudices  handled  rudely, 
I  still  make  bold  to  undertake  this  task,  because  of  the  vital  nature 
of  the  problems  I  shall  probe. 

The  case  for  the  Bottom  Dog  should  touch  the  public  heart  to 
the  quick,  for  it  affects  the  truth  of  our  religions,  the  justice  of 
our  laws,  and  the  destinies  of  our  children  and  our  children's 
children. 

Much  golden  eloquence  has  been  squandered  in  praise  of  the 
successful  and  the  good;  much  stern  condemnation  has  been 
vented  upon  the  wicked.  I  venture  now  to  plead  for  those  of  our 
poor  brothers  and  sisters  who  are  accursed  of  Christ  and  rejected 
of  men. 

Hitherto  all  the  love,  all  the  honours,  all  the  applause  of  this 
world,  and  all  the  rewards  of  heaven,  have  been  lavished  on  the 
fortunate  and  the  strong;  and  the  portion  of  the  unfriended  Bot- 
tom Dog,  in  his  adversity  and  weakness,  has  been  curses,  blows, 
chains,  the  gallows,  and  everlasting  damnation. 

I  shall  plead,  then,  for  those  who  are  loathed  and  tortured  and 
branded  as  the  sinful  and  unclean;  for  those  who  have  hated  us 
and  wronged  us,  and  have  been  wronged  and  hated  by  us.  I  shall 
defend  them  for  right's  sake,  for  pity's  sake,  and  for  the  benefit  of 

1 


i   N         '  ''.*'* 


THE  AUTHOR'S  APOLOGY 

society  and  the  race.  For  these  also  are  of  our  flesh,  these  also 
have  erred  and  gone  astray,  these  also  are  victims  of  an  inscrut- 
able and  relentless  Fate. 

If  it  concerns  us  that  the  religions  of  the  world  are  childish 
dreams,  or  nightmares;  if  it  concerns  us  that  our  penal  laws  and 
moral  codes  are  survivals  of  barbarism  and  fear;  if  it  concerns 
us  that  our  most  cherished  and  venerable  ideas  of  our  relations  to 
God  and  to  each  other  are  illogical  and  savage,  then  the  case  for 
the  Bottom  Dog  concerns  us  nearly. 

If  it  moves  us  to  learn  that  disease  may  be  prevented,  that  ruin 
may  be  averted,  that  broken  hearts  and  broken  lives  may  be  made 
whole;  if  it  inspires  us  to  hear  how  beauty  may  be  conjured  out 
of  loathliness  and  glory  out  of  shame;  how  waste  may  be  turned 
to  wealth  and  death  to  life,  and  despair  to  happiness,  then  the 
case  for  the  Bottom  Dog  is  a  case  to  be  well  and  truly  tried. 

If  man's  flesh  and  woman's  flesh  are  merchandise  or  carrion;  if 
the  defiled  and  trampled  souls  of  innocent  children  are  no  more  to 
us  than  are  the  trodden  blossoms  under  the  feet  of  swine;  if  love 
lies  to  us  and  pity  is  a  cheat;  if  whips  and  chains  and  contumely 
and  the  gibbet  are  meet  for  our  sisters  and  our  brothers  and  if  dis- 
honourable ease  and  beggarly  pride  and  the  flatteries  of  fools  are 
worthy  of  ourselves,  then  we  have  the  Yellow  Press  and  the 
painted  altar  and  the  Parliamentary  speeches  and  a  selfish  heaven 
and  a  hell  where  the  worm  never  dies;  and  everything  is  for  the 
best  in  this  best  of  all  possible  worlds:  amen. 

But  because  I  believe  "men  needs  must  love  the  highest  when 
they  see  it,"  because  I  believe  that  the  universal  heart  is  sweet 
and  sound,  because  I  believe  there  are  many  who  honour  truth 
and  seek  happiness  and  peace  for  all,  I  do  not  fear  to  plead  for 
the  Bottom  Dog,  nor  to  ask  a  patient  hearing. 

Rightly  or  wrongly,  happily  or  unhappily,  but  with  all  the  sin- 
cerity of  my  soul,  I  shall  here  deny  the  justice  and  reason  of  every 
kind  of  blame  and  praise,  of  punishment  and  reward — human  or 
divine. 

Divine  law — the  law  made  by  priests,  and  attributed  to  God — 
consists  of  a  code  of  rewards  and  punishments  for  acts  called 
good  or  bad.  Human  law — the  law  made  by  Kings  and  Parlia- 
ments— consists  of  a  code  of  punishments  for  acts  called  criminal 
and  unlawful. 

I  claim  that  men  should  not  be  classified  as  good  and  bad,  but  as 
fortunate  and  unfortunate;  that  they  should  be  pitied,  and  not 
blamed;  helped  instead  of  being  punished. 

I  claim  that  since  we  do  not  hold  a  man  worthy  of  praise  for 

2 


being  born  beautiful,  nor  of  blame  for  being  born  ugly,  neither 
should  we  hold  him  worthy  of  praise  for  being  born  virtuous,  nor 
of  blame  for  being  born  vicious. 

I  base  this  claim  upon  the  self-evident  and  undeniable  fact  that 
man  has  no  part  in  the  creation  of  his  own  nature. 

I  shall  be  told  this  means  that  no  man  is  answerable  for  his 
own  acts. 

That  is  exactly  what  it  does  mean. 

But,  it  will  be  urged,  every  man  has  a  free  will  to  act  as  he 
chooses;  and  to  deny  that  is  to  imperil  all  law  and  order,  all 
morality  and  discipline. 

I  deny  both  these  inferences,  and  I  ask  the  reader  to  hear  my 
case  patiently,  and  to  judge  it  on  its  merits. 

Let  us  first  test  the  justice  of  our  laws,  divine  and  human:  the 
question  of  their  usefulness  we  will  deal  with  later. 


CHAPTER     ONE 
THE  LAWS  OF  GOD 

DIVINE  law  says  that  certain  acts  are  good,  and  that 
certain  acts  are  evil;  and  that  God  will  reward  those 
who  do  well,  and  will  punish  those  who  do  ill.  And 
we  are  told  that  God  will  so  act  because  God  is  just. 

But  I  claim  that  God  cannot  justly  punish  those  who  disobey, 
nor  reward  those  who  obey  His  laws. 

Religious  people  tell  us  that  God  is  "The  Great  First  Cause" : 
that  God  created  all  things — mankind,  the  universe,  nature  and  all 
her  laws. 

Who  is  answerable  for  a  thing  that  is  caused :  he  who  causes 
it,  or  he  who  does  not  cause  it  ? 

He  who  causes  it  is  answerable.  And  God  is  "The  First  Great 
Cause"  of  all  things.  And  the  cause  of  all  things  is  answerable 
for  all  things. 

If  God  created  all  things  He  must  have  created  the  evil  as  well 
as  the  good. 

Who,  then,  is  responsible  for  good  and  evil  ?  Only  God,  for  He 
made  them. 

He  who  creates  all  is  responsible  for  all.  God  created  all :  God 
is  responsible  for  all. 

He  who  creates  nothing  is  responsible  for  nothing.  Man  created 
nothing :  man  is  responsible  for  nothing. 

Therefore  man  is  not  responsible  for  his  nature,  nor  for  the 
acts  prompted  by  that  nature. 

Therefore  God  cannot  justly  punish  man  for  his  acts. 

Therefore  the  Divine  law,  with  its  code  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, is  not  a  just  law,  and  cannot  have  emanated  from  a  just 
God. 

Therefore  the  Christian  religion  is  built  upon  a  foundation  of 
error,  and  there  are  no  such  things  as  God's  wrath,  God's  pardon ; 
heaven  or  hell. 

That  argument  has  never  been  answered.  But  attempts  have 
been  made  to  evade  it,  and  the  plea  most  commonly  put  forward 

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NOT  GUILTY 

has  been  so  gracefully  expressed  by  Mr.  G.  K.  Chesterton  that  I 
will  quote  it  in  his  own  words : 

Now,  the  question  round  which  this  controversy  has  circled  for  ages 
is  simply  this:  Clearly  God  can,  in  the  exercise  of  His  omnipotence, 
give  part  of  Himself  to  His  creatures;  can  give  His  strength  to  the 
bull,  or  His  beauty  to  the  lily.  Could  God  possibly,  in  the  exercise  of 
His  omnipotence,  give  to  one  of  His  creatures  some  portion  of  that 
other  quality  of  His — His  originating  power,  His  power  of  primal  in- 
vention, this  making  things  from  nothing  or  Himself?  If  God  can 
do  all  things,  can  He  not  make  man  free?  Can  He  not  give  man  the 
power  to  create  actions  as  God  creates  stars?  He  can  give  His  force; 
can  He  give  a  little  of  his  sovereignty?  Can  He,  in  short,  create  a 
kind  of  little  God — an  "imago  Dei?" 

The  answer  to  that  quaint  piece  of  reasoning  is  that  it  begs  the 
question.  For  I  do  not  say  that  God  cannot  give  to  man  any 
power  He  chooses;  but  that  God  is  responsible,  and  man  is  not 
responsible,  for  the  nature  and  the  acts  of  any  power  by  God 
bestowed. 

If  man  did  not  invent,  nor  create  himself ;  if  man  did  not  create 
"the  power"  bestowed  upon  him  by  God;  if  man  did  not  bestow 
that  power  upon  himself,  how  can  man  be  responsible  for  the 
power  or  for  its  acts  ? 

God  not  only  created  man;  He  created  the  material  of  which 
man  was  made,  and  the  laws  of  the  universe  into  which  man  was 
introduced. 

God  is  the  "First  Great  Cause" :  He  created  all  things :  the  evil 
and  the  good.  How  can  God  blame  man  for  the  effects  of  which 
God  is  the  cause? 

For  the  defeat  of  all  Christian  apologists  it  is  not  necessary  for 
me  to  add  another  word;  the  argument  is  invincible  as  it  stands. 
But  for  the  reader's  sake  it  may  be  as  well  to  deal  rather  more 
fully  with  what  may  be  to  him  a  new  and  startling  idea.  Let  us 
then  return  to  Mr.  Chesterton's  plea. 

God  is  said  to  give  to  man  a  "power":  a  power  which,  Mr. 
Chesterton  says,  God  "made  out  of  Himself."  And  this  power 
will  create  thoughts,  will  create  actions  as  God  creates  stars. 

But  we  see  that  man  cannot  create  the  thoughts  nor  cause  the 
actions  until  God  gives  him  the  "power."  Then  it  is  the  "power" 
that  creates  the  thoughts  or  acts.  Then  it  is  not  man,  but  the 
"power" — the  power  God  made  out  of  Himself  and  bestowed 
upon  man — that  creates  the  thoughts  or  acts.  Then  the  "power" 
is  a  kind  of  lord  or  ruler  made  by  God,  and  put  by  God  over  man, 
as  a  rider  is  placed  upon  a  horse,  or  a  pilot  on  a  ship.  Then  man 

6 


THE  LAWS  OF  GOD 

is  no  more  responsible  for  the  acts  or  the  thoughts  of  this  ruling 
power  than  a  horse  is  responsible  for  the  acts  of  a  jockey,  or  a 
ship  for  the  acts  of  a  pilot. 

In  fact,  the  "power"  given  by  God  to  man  is  only  another  name 
for  the  "will  of  God,"  or  the  "power  of  God" ;  and  if  man's  acts 
are  ruled,  or  created,  by  the  will  or  power  of  God,  how  can  God 
justly  punish  man  for  those  acts? 

If  God  created  man  as  well  as  this  imaginary  "power"  which 
God  is  said  to  give  to  man,  God  is  responsible  for  the  acts  of  both. 

It  is  claimed  by  others  that  man  is  responsible  to  God  for  his 
acts  because  God  gave  him  "reason,"  or  because  God  gave  him  a 
"conscience,"  or  because  God  gave  him  a  "will"  to  choose. 

But  these  words,  "conscience,"  "reason,"  and  "will,"  are  only 
other  names  for  Mr.  Chesterton's  imaginary  "power." 

Let  us  be  careful  to  keep  our  thoughts  quite  clear  and  unentan- 
gled.  If  we  speak  of  "will,"  or  "power,"  or  "reason,"  as  a  thing 
"given  to  man,"  we  imply  that  "will,"  or  "power,"  is  a  thing 
outside  of  man,  and  not  a  part  of  him. 

Having  failed  to  saddle  man  with  responsibility  for  himself,  our 
opponents  would  now  make  him  responsible  for  some  "power" 
outside  himself.  The  simple  answer  is  that  man  made  neither 
himself  nor  his  powers,  and  that  God  made  man  and  the  power 
given  to  man;  therefore  God  and  not  man  is  responsible. 

Conscience  and  reason  and  the  "power"  are  rulers  or  guides 
given  to  man  by  God.  God  made  these  guides  or  rulers. 

These  guides  must  be  true  guides,  or  false  guides:  they  must 
be  good  or  bad. 

God  is  all-knowing,  as  well  as  all-powerful.  Not  only  has  He 
power  to  create  at  will  a  true  guide  or  a  false  guide,  but  He 
knows  when  He  creates  a  guide,  and  when  He  bestows  that  guide 
upon  man,  whether  it  will  be  a  true  or  a  false  guide.  Therefore, 
when  God  created  the  reason  or  the  conscience  and  gave  it  to 
man,  He  knew  whether  the  reason  or  the  conscience  would  guide 
man  right  or  wrong.  If  the  power  made  and  bestowed  by  God 
leads  man  wrongly,  it  is  leading  man  as  God  -willed  and  knew  it 
would  lead  him.  How,  then,  can  God  justly  blame  man  for  the 
acts  that  reason  or  power  "creates"  ? 

God  creates  a  number  of  good  propensities,  and  a  number  of 
evil  propensities,  packs  them  up  in  a  bundle  and  calls  them  "man." 
Is  the  skinful  of  propensities  created  and  put  together  by  God 
responsible  for  the  proportion  of  good  and  evil  powers  it  com- 
prises ? 

But  then  Mr.  Chesterton  suggests  that  God  puts  over  the  bun- 

7 


NOT  GUILTY 

die  a  "power"  of  control.  That  power  controls  man  for  evil :  as 
God  must  have  known  it  would.  Is  the  bundle  of  God's  making 
responsible  for  the  failure  of  the  power  God  made  and  sent  to 
manage  it?  God  must  have  known  when  He  created  and  put 
the  "power"  in  control  that  it  would  fail. 

Tell  me  now,  some  wise  philosopher,  or  great  divine,  or  learned 
logician,  which  is  the  man?  Is  it  the  good  propensities,  or  the 
evil  propensities,  or  the  power  of  control  ?  Aiid  tell  me  how  can 
any  one  or  all  of  these  be  responsible  to  the  God  who  invented 
them,  who  created  them,  who  joined  them  together;  who  made 
and  united  them,  knowing  they  would  fail  ? 

Here  is  a  grand  conception  of  an  "all-wise,"  "all-powerful," 
perfectly  "just"  God,  who  creates  a  man  whom  He  knows  must 
do  evil,  gives  him  a  guide  who  cannot  make  him  do  well,  issues 
commands  for  him  to  act  as  God  has  made  it  impossible  for  him 
to  act,  and  finally  punishes  him  for  failing  to  do  what  God  knew 
from  the  first  he  was  incapable  of  doing. 

And  the  world  is  paying  millions  of  money,  and  bestowing  hon- 
ours and  rewards  in  profusion  upon  the  learned  and  wise  and 
spiritual  leaders  who  teach  it  to  believe  such  illogical  nonsense  as 
the  above. 

When  we  turn  from  the  old  idea  of  instantaneous  creation  to 
the  new  idea  of  evolution,  the  theories  about  "God's  mercy"  and 
"God's  wrath"  are  still  more  impossible  and  absurd. 

For  now  we  are  to  believe  that  God,  the  "First  Great  Cause," 
"in  the  beginning1"  created  not  man  and  beast,  and  forest  and 
sea,  and  hill  and  plain,  but  "matter,"  and  "force,"  and  "law." 

Out  of  the  matter  and  force  God  made,  working  to  the  law 
God  made,  there  slowly  developed  the  nebulae,  the  suns,  the 
planets. 

Out  of  the  same  matter  and  force,  changed  in  form  by  the 
working  of  God's  laws,  there  slowly  developed  the  single-celled 
jelly-like  creature  from  which,  by  the  working  of  God's  laws, 
all  other  forms  of  life  have  since  evolved. 

Out  of  matter  and  force,  working  to  God's  laws,  man  has  been 
evolved. 

Is  there  any  step  in  the  long  march  of  evolution  from  the  first 
creation  of  matter  and  force  to  the  evolution  of  man,  when  the 
jelly  speck,  or  the  polyp,  or  the  fish,  or  the  reptile,  or  the  beast, 
or  the  ape,  or  the  man,  had  power  to  change,  or  to  assist,  or  to 
resist  the  working  of  the  laws  God  made  ? 

Is  there  any  step  in  the  long  march  of  evolution,  any  link  in 
the  long  chain  of  cause  and  effect,  when  any  one  of  the  things 

8 


THE  LAWS  OF  GOD 

or  beings  evolved  by  law  working  on  matter  and  force  could  by 
act  or  will  of  their  own  have  developed  otherwise  than  as  they 
did? 

Is  it  not  plain  that  man  has  developed  into  that  which  he  is  by 
slow  evolution  of  matter  and  force,  through  the  operation  of  di- 
vine laws  over  which  he  had  no  more  control  than  he  now  has  over 
the  revolution  of  the  suns  in  their  orbits? 

How,  then,  can  we  believe  that  man  is  to  blame  for  being  that 
which  he  is? 

Is  there  any  quality  of  body  or  of  mind  that  has  not  been  inev- 
itably evolved  in  man  by  the  working  of  God's  laws? 

You  are  not  going  to  tell  me  that  I  am  answerable  or  blame- 
able  for  the  nature  of  matter  and  force,  nor  for  the  operations  of 
God's  laws,  are  you? 

You  will  not  suggest  that  I  am  responsible  for  the  creation: 
so  long  ago,  and  I  so  new,  so  weak,  so  small ! 

God,  when  He  created  matter  and  force  and  law,  knew  the  na- 
ture of  matter  and  force,  and  the  power  and  purpose  of  law.  He 
knew  that  they  must  work  as  He  had  made  and  meant  them  to 
work.  He  knew  that  we  must  be  as  His  agents  must  make  us. 

Will  He  punish  or  reward  us,  then,  for  the  acts  of  His  agents : 
the  agents  He  made  and  controlled  ?  Absurd. 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  "man  has  a  soul."  So !  He  got  that  soul 
from  God.  God  made  the  soul  and  fixed  its  powers  for  good  and 
evil. 

It  is  the  soul,  then,  that  is  responsible,  is  it?  But  the  soul  did 
not  create  itself,  and  can  only  act  as  God  has  ordained  that  it 
shall  and  must  act. 

If  man  is  not  to  blame  for  his  own  acts  he  is  not  to  blame  for 
the  acts  of  his  soul ;  and  for  the  same  reason. 

"Soul,"  or  "man,"  "reason,"  or  "conscience,"  responsibility  lies 
with  the  causer,  and  not  with  the  thing  caused. 

And  God  is  "The  First  Great  Cause,"  and  how  then  can  God 
justly  punish  any  of  His  creatures  for  being  as  He  created  them? 

It  is  impossible.  It  is  unthinkable.  But  upon  this  unthinkable 
and  impossible  absurdity  the  whole  code  of  divine  laws  is  built. 

Therefore  the  Christian  religion  is  untrue,  and  man  is  not  re- 
sponsible to  God  for  his  nature  nor  for  his  acts. 


CHAPTER     TWO 
THE  LAWS  OF  MAN 


COMMON  law  and  common  usage  all  the  world  over  hold 
men  answerable  for  their  acts,  and  blame  or  punish  them 
when  those  acts  transgress  the  laws  of  custom. 

Human  law,  like  the  divine  law,  is  based  upon  the 
false  idea  that  men  know  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong,  and 
have  power  to  choose  the  right. 

Human  law,  like  divine  law,  classifies  men  as  good  and  bad, 
and  punishes  them  for  doing  "wrong." 

But  men  should  not  be  classified  as  good  and  bad,  but  as  for- 
tunate and  unfortunate,  as  weak  and  strong. 

And  the  unfortunate  and  weak  should  not  be  blamed,  but  pitied ; 
should  not  be  punished  but  helped. 

The  just  and  wise  course  is  to  look  upon  all  wrong-doers  as  we 
look  upon  the  ignorant,  the  diseased,  the  insane,  and  the  deformed. 

Many  of  our  wrong-doers  are  ignorant,  or  diseased,  or  insane, 
or  mentally  deformed.  But  there  are  some  who  are  base  or  sav- 
age by  nature.  These  should  be  regarded  as  we  regard  base  or 
savage  animals :  as  creatures  of  a  lower  order,  dangerous,  but  not 
deserving  blame  nor  hatred.  And  this  is  the  sound  view,  as  I  shall 
show,  because  these  unhappy  creatures  are  nearer  to  our  brutish 
ancestors  than  other  men,  the  ancient  strain  of  man's  bestial  origin 
cropping  out  in  them  through  no  fault  of  their  own. 

Religion  says  man  is  the  product  of  God ;  science  says  he  is  the 
product  of  "heredity"  and  "environment."  The  difference  does 
not  matter  much  to  my  case.  The  point  is  that  man  does  not 
create  himself,  and  so  is  not  to  blame  for  his  nature,  and,  there- 
fore, is  not  to  blame  for  his  acts. 

For  man  did  not  help  God  in  the  act  of  his  creation,  nor  did  he 
choose  his  own  ancestors. 

"What !  do  you  mean  to  say  that  the  ruffian,  the  libertine,  and 
the  knave  are  not  to  be  blamed  nor  punished  for  any  of  the  vile 
and  cruel  acts  they  perpetrate?"  asks  "the  average  man." 

Yes.    That  is  what  I  mean.    And  that  is  not  a  new  and  star- 

10 


THE  LAWS  OF 

tling  "craze,"  as  many  may  suppose,  but  is  a  piece  of  very  an- 
cient wisdom ;  as  old  as  the  oldest  thought  of  India  and  of  Greece. 
In  the  Bhagavad-gita  it  is  written: 

He  sees  truly  who  sees  all  actions  to  be  done  by  nature  alone, 
and  likewise  the  self  not  the  doer. 

And  Socrates  said : 

It  is  an  odd  thing  that  if  you  had  met  a  man  ill-conditioned 
in  body  you  would  not  have  been  angry;  but  to  have  met  a 
man  rudely  disposed  in  mind  provokes  you. 

Neither  am  I  unsupported  to-day  in  my  heresies.  Most  theolo- 
gists  are  opposed  to  me,  but  most  men  of  science  are  with  me: 
they  look  upon  man  as  a  creature  of  "heredity"  and  "environ- 
ment." 

What  a  man  does  depends  upon  what  he  is;  and  what  he  is  de- 
pends upon  his  "breed"  and  his  "experience." 

We  admit  that  no  two  men  are  quite  alike.  We  should  not 
expect  men  who  are  unlike  in  nature  and  in  knowledge  to  do  like 
acts.  Where  the  causes  are  different  it  is  folly  to  expect  identi- 
cal effects. 

Every  man  is  that  which  his  forbears  (his  ancestors)  and  his 
experiences  (his  environment)  have  made  him. 

Every  man's  character  is  formed  partly  by  "heredity"  (breed, 
or  descent)  and  partly  by  "environment"  (experience,  or  sur- 
roundings). That  is  to  say,  his  character  depends  partly  upon 
the  nature  of  his  parents,  and  partly  upon  the  nature  of  his  expe- 
rience. 

He  conies  into  the  world  just  as  his  ancestors  have  made  him. 
He  did  not  choose  his  ancestors;  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
moulding  of  their  natures.  Every  quality,  good  or  bad,  in  his  own 
nature,  has  been  handed  down  to  him  by  his  forbears,  without 
knowledge  or  consent. 

How  can  we  blame  the  new-born  or  unborn  baby  for  the  nature 
and  arrangement  of  the  cells — which  are  he? 

Born  into  the  world  as  he  was  made,  he  is  a  helpless  infant, 
dependent  upon  his  nurses  and  his  teachers.  He  did  not  choose 
his  nurses,  nor  his  teachers;  he  cannot  control  their  conduct  to- 
wards him,  nor  test  the  truth  nor  virtue  of  the  lessons  he  learns 
from  them. 

As  he  grows  older  the  nature  he  inherited  from  his  ancestors 

11 


NOT  GUILTY 

is  modified,  for  better  or  for  worse,  by  the  lessons  and  the  treat- 
ment given  to  him  by  his  nurses,  his  companions,  and  his  teachers. 

So,  when  he  becomes  a  man  he  is  that  which  his  forbears  and 
his  fellow  creatures  have  made  him. 

That  is  to  say,  he  is  the  product  of  his  heredity  and  his  environ- 
ment. He  could  not  be  otherwise. 

How,  then,  can  it  be  just  to  blame  him  for  being  that  which  he 
must  be  ? 

But,  it  may  be  objected,  a  man  has  power  to  change,  or  to  con- 
quer, his  environment ;  to  train,  or  to  subdue,  his  original  nature. 

That  depends  upon  the  strength  of  his  original  nature  (which 
his  ancestors  handed  down  to  him)  and  of  his  environment — 
which  consists,  largely,  of  the  actions  of  his  fellow-creatures. 

A  man  has  power  to  do  that  which  his  forbears  have  made  him 
able  to  do.  He  has  power  to  do  no  more. 

He  has  certain  powers  given  him  by  his  forbears,  which  may 
have  been  developed  or  repressed  by  his  surroundings.  With 
those  powers,  as  modified  by  the  influences  surrounding  and  out- 
side himself,  he  may  do  all  that  his  nature  desires  and  is  able  to 
do.  Up  to  the  limit  of  his  inherited  powers  he  may  do  all  that 
his  environment  (his  experiences)  have  taught  or  incited  him 
to  do. 

To  speak  of  a  man  conquering  his  environment  is  the  same 
thing  as  to  speak  of  a  man  swimming  against  a  stream.  He  can 
swim  against  the  stream  if  he  has  strength  and  skill  to  overcome 
the  stream.  His  strength  is  his  heredity :  his  skill  is  the  result  of 
his  environment.  If  his  strength  and  skill  are  more  than  equal 
to  the  force  of  the  stream  he  will  conquer  his  environment ;  if  the 
stream  is  too  strong  for  him  he  will  be  conquered  by  his  environ- 
ment. 

His  acts,  in  short,  depend  wholly  upon  his  nature  and  his  en- 
vironment: neither  of  which  is  of  his  own  choosing.  Of  this  I 
will  say  more  in  its  place. 

A  man  gets  his  nature  from  his  forbears,  just  as  certainly  as 
he  gets  the  shape  of  his  nose,  the  length  of  his  foot,  and  the  colour 
of  his  eyes  from  his  forbears. 

As  we  do  not  blame  a  man  for  being  born  with  red  or  black 
hair,  why  should  we  blame  him  for  being  born  with  strong  pas- 
sions or  base  desires? 

If  it  is  foolish  to  blame  a  child  for  being  born  with  a  de- 
formed or  weak  spine,  how  can  it  be  reasonable  to  blame  him 
for  being  born  with  a  deformed  or  weak  brain  ? 

The  nature  and  quality  of  his  hair  and  his  eyes,  of  his  spine  and 

12 


THE  LAWS  OF  MAN 

his  brain,  of  his  passions  and  desires,  were  all  settled  for  and  not 
by  him  before  he  drew  the  breath  of  life. 

If  we  blame  a  man  because  he  has  inherited  fickleness  from  an 
Italian  grandfather,  or  praise  him  because  he  has  inherited  stead- 
fastness from  a  Dutch  grandmother,  we  are  actually  praising  or 
blaming  him  because,  before  he  was  born,  an  Italian  married  a 
Hollander. 

If  we  blame  a  man  for  inheriting  cupidity  from  an  ancestor 
who  was  greedy  and  rapacious,  or  for  inheriting  licentious  incli- 
nations from  an  ancestor  who  was  a  rake,  we  are  blaming  him 
for  failing  to  be  born  of  better  parents. 

Briefly,  then,  heredity  makes,  and  environment  modifies,  a 
man's  nature.  And  both  these  forces  are  outside  the  man. 

Therefore  man  becomes  that  which  he  is  by  the  action  of  forces 
outside  himself.  Therefore  it  is  unjust  to  blame  a  man  for  being 
that  which  he  is.  Therefore  it  is  unjust  to  blame  him  for  doing 
that  which  he  does. 

Therefore  our  human  laws,  which  punish  men  for  their  acts,  are 
unjust  laws. 

Now,  before  we  go  fully  into  the  meanings  of  the  words  "hered- 
ity" and  "environment,"  let  us  make  a  short  summary  of  the  argu- 
ments above  put  forth. 

Since  man  did  not  create  his  own  nature,  man  is  not  responsible 
for  his  own  acts. 

Therefore  all  laws,  human  or  divine,  which  punish  man  for  his 
acts  are  unjust  laws. 


CHAPTER  THREE 
WHERE  DO  OUR 
NATURES  COME  FROM? 


I  HOPE  the  reader  will  not  fight  shy  of  heredity.  I  trust  he 
will  find  it  quite  simple  and  interesting;  and  I  promise  him 
to  use  no  unfamiliar  words,  nor  to  trouble  him  with  difficult 
and  tedious  scientific  expositions. 

I  deal  with  heredity  before  environment,  because  it  is  needful 
to  take  them  one  at  a  time,  and  heredity  comes  first;  as  birth 
before  schooling. 

But  we  must  not  fall  into  the  bad  habit  of  thinking  of  heredity 
and  environment  apart  from  each  other,  for  it  is  both,  and  not 
either  of  them  that  make  man's  character. 

It  is  often  said  that  neither  heredity  nor  environment  accounts 
for  a  man's  conduct.  And  that  is  true.  But  it  is  true,  also,  that 
heredity  and  environment  account  for  every  quality  in  the  human 
"make-up."  A  pianist,  an  artist,  or  a  cricketer  is  "made  as  well 
as  born,"  and  so  is  every  man.  A  good  batsman  is  a  good  batsman 
for  two  reasons:  (i)  He  was  born  with  good  sight,  steady; 
nerves,  and  sound  sense,  all  of  which  he  owes  to  his  ancestors. 
(2)  He  has  been  well  taught,  or  has  practised  well,  and  this  prac- 
tice, this  endeavour  to  succeed,  he  owes  to  his  inherited  ambition, 
and  to  the  precept  and  example  of  other  men.  So  if  a  man  plays 
a  fiddle  well,  or  steers  a  ship  well,  or  devotes  his  life  to  charity, 
the  excellence  is  always  due  to  heredity  and  environment.  For 
the  cricketer  would  never  have  been  a  cricketer,  nor  the  violinist 
a  violinist,  had  he  been  born  in  a  country  where  cricket  and  violin 
playing  were  unknown.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man  bred 
amongst  cricketers  or  musicians  will  never  excel  in  music  nor  in 
cricket  unless  he  has  what  is  called  "a  gift";  and  the  gift  is 
"heredity." 

Now,  what  do  we  mean  by  "heredity"? 

Heredity  is  "descent,"  or  "breed."  Heredity,  as  the  word  is 
here  used,  means  those  qualities  which  are  handed  down  from  one 
generation  to  the  next.  It  means  those  qualities  which  a  new  gen- 
eration inherits  from  the  generation  from  whom  it  descends.  It 

14 


WHERE  DO  OUE  NATURES  COME  FROM? 

means  all  that  "is  bred  in  the  bone."  If  a  man  inherits  a  Grecian 
nose,  a  violent  temper,  well-knit  muscles,  a  love  of  excitement, 
or  a  good  ear  for  music,  from  his  father  or  mother,  that  quality 
or  feature  is  part  of  his  heredity.  It  is  "bred  in  him." 

Every  quality  a  child  possesses  at  the  moment  of  birth,  every 
quality  of  body  or  of  mind,  is  inherited  from  his  parents  and  their 
ancestors.  And  the  whole  of  those  qualities — which  are  the  child 
— are  what  we  call  "heredity." 

No  child  brings  into  the  world  one  single  quality  of  body  or 
mind  that  has  not  been  handed  down  to  it  by  its  ancestors. 

And  yet  no  two  children  are  exactly  alike,  and  no  child  is  ex- 
actly like  any  one  of  its  forbears. 

This  difference  of  children  from  each  other  and  from  the  pa- 
rent stock  is  called  "variation." 

Hundreds  of  books  and  papers  have  been  written  about  "varia- 
tion," and  to  read  some  of  them  one  might  suppose  variation  to 
be  a  very  difficult  subject.  But  it  is  quite  simple,  and  will  not  give 
us  any  trouble  at  all.  Let  us  see. 

Why  We  Are  Not  All  Alike 

The  cause  of  variation  can  be  easily  understood. 

Variation  is  due  to  the  fact  that  every  child  has  two  parents. 
If  these  two  parents  were  exactly  alike,  and  if  their  ancestors  had 
been  all  exactly  alike,  their  children  would  be  exactly  like  each 
other  and  like  their  parents. 

But  the  father  and  mother  are  of  different  families,  of  differ- 
ent natures,  and  perhaps  of  different  races.  And  the  ancestors 
of  the  father  and  mother — millions  in  number — were  all  different 
from  each  other  in  nature  and  in  descent. 

Now,  since  a  child  inherits  some  qualities  from  its  father  and 
some  from  its  mother,  it  follows  that  if  the  father  and  mother  are 
different  from  each  other,  the  child  must  differ  from  both,  and  yet 
resemble  both.  For  he  will  inherit  from  the  father  qualities  which 
the  mother  has  not  inherited  from  her  ancestors,  and  he  will  in- 
herit from  the  mother  qualities  which  the  father  did  not  inherit 
from  his  ancestors.  So  the  child  will  resemble  both  parents, 
without  being  an  exact  copy  of  either.  It  "varies"  from  both 
parents  by  inheriting  from  each. 

The  child  of  a  black  and  a  white  parent  is  what  we  call  a  half- 
caste  :  he  is  neither  a  negro  nor  a  white  man.  The  pup  of  a  bull- 
dog and  a  terrier  is  neither  a  bull-dog  nor  a  terrier;  he  is  a  bull- 
terrier. 

15 


NOT  GUILTY 

But  heredity  goes  farther  than  that,  and  variation  is  more  com- 
plex than  that. 

We  must  not  think  of  a  man  as  inheriting  from  his  father  and 
mother  only.  He  inherits  from  the  parents  of  both  his  parents; 
and  from  thousands  of  ancestors  before  those.  He  inherits  from 
men  and  women  who  died  thousands  of  years  before  he  was  born. 
He  inherits  from  the  cave-man,  from  the  tree-man,  from  the  ape- 
man,  from  the  ape,  and  from  the  beast  before  the  ape. 

The  child  in  the  womb  begins  as  a  cell,  and  develops  through  the 
stages  of  evolution,  becoming  an  embryo  worm,  fish,  quadruped, 
ape,  and,  finally,  a  human  baby. 

The  child  is  born  with  the  bodily  and  mental  qualities  inherited 
from  many  generations  of  beasts  and  many  generations  of  men. 

Any  one  of  the  many  ancient  qualities  of  mind  or  body  may 
crop  up  again  in  a  modern  child.  Children  have  been  born  with 
tails :  children  have  been  born  with  six  nipples,  like  a  dog,  instead 
of  with  two,  like  a  human  being. 

And  now  I  will  explain,  simply  and  briefly,  what  we  mean  by 
the  word  "Atavism." 

Why  the  Clock  of  Descent  Sometimes  Goes  Backward 

"Atavism,"  or  "breeding  back,"  or  "reversion,"  may  reach  back 
through  thousands  of  generations,  and  some  trait  of  the  cave-man, 
or  the  beast,  may  reappear  in  a  child  of  Twentieth  Century  civ- 
ilisation. 

Darwin,  in  The  Descent  of  Man,  Chapter  II,  gives  many  in- 
stances of  "atavism,"  or  breeding  back,  by  human  beings  to  apish 
and  even  quadrupedal  characteristics.  Alluding  to  a  case  cited  by 
Mr.  J.  Wood,  in  which  a  man  had  seven  muscles  "proper  to  cer- 
tain apes,"  Darwin  says : 

It  is  quite  incredible  that  a  man  should  through  mere  acci- 
dent abnormally  resemble  certain  apes  in  no  less  than  seven  of 
his  muscles,  if  there  had  been  no  genetic  connection  between 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  if  man  is  descended  from  some  ape- 
like creature,  no  valid  reason  can  be  assigned  why  certain  mus- 
cles should  not  suddenly  reappear  after  an  interval  of  many 
thousand  generations,  in  the  same  manner  as  with  horses,  asses, 
and  mules,  dark-coloured  stripes  suddenly  reappear  on  the  legs 
and  shoulders  after  an  interval  of  hundreds,  or,  more  probably, 
of  thousands  of  generations. 

18 


WHERE  DO  OUR  NATURES  COME  FROM? 

Dr.  Lydston,  in  The  Diseases  of  Society  (Lippincott:  1904) 
says: 

The  outcropping  of  ancestral  types  of  mentality  is  observed 
to  underlie  many  of  the  manifestations  of  vice  and  crime. 
These  ancestral  types  or  traits  may  revert  farther  back  even 
than  the  savage  progenitors  of  civilised  man,  and  approximate 
those  of  the  lower  animals  who,  in  their  turn,  stand  behind  the 
savage  in  the  line  of  descent. 

This  "reversion  to  older  and  lower  types,"  or  "breeding  back," 
is  important,  because  it  is  the  source  of  much  crime — the  origin 
of  very  many  "Bottom  Dogs,"  as  we  shall  see.  But  at  present  we 
need  only  notice  that  heredity,  or  breed,  reaches  back  through  im- 
mense distances  of  time ;  so  that  a  man  inherits  not  only  from  sav- 
age ancestors,  but  also  from  the  brutes.  And  man  has  no  power 
to  choose  his  breed,  has  no  choice  of  ancestors,  but  must  take  the 
qualities  of  body  and  mind  they  hand  down  to  him,  be  those  quali- 
ties good  or  bad. 

Descent,  or  breed,  does  not  work  regularly.  Any  trait  of  any 
ancestor,  beast  or  man,  near  or  remote,  may  crop  up  suddenly  in 
any  new  generation.  A  child  may  bear  little  likeness  to  its  father 
or  mother :  it  may  be  more  like  its  great-grandfather,  its  uncle,  or 
its  aunt. 

It  is  as  though  every  dead  fore-parent  back  to  the  dimmest  hori- 
zon of  time,  were  liable  to  put  a  ghostly  finger  in  the  pie,  to  mend 
or  mar  it. 

Let  us  now  use  a  simple  illustration  of  the  workings  of  heredity, 
variation,  and  atavism,  or  breeding  back. 

There  is  no  need  to  trouble  ourselves  with  the  scientific  expla- 
nations. What  we  have  to  understand  is  that  children  inherit 
qualities  from  their  ancestors;  that  children  vary  from  their  an- 
cestors and  from  each  other;  and  that  old  types  or  old  qualities 
may  crop  out  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  in  a  new  generation. 
Knowing,  as  we  do,  that  children  inherit  from  their  parents  and 
fore-parents,  the  rest  may  be  made  quite  plain  without  a  single 
scientific  word. 

The  Mystery  of  Descent  Made  Easy 

In  our  illustration  we  will  take  for  parents  and  children  bot- 
tles, and  for  hereditary  qualities  beads  of  different  colours. 

17 


NOT  GUILTY 

Now,  take  a  bottle  of  red  beads,  and  call  it  male.  Take  a  bottle 
of  blue  beads,  and  call  it  female. 

From  each  bottle  take  a  portion  of  beads ;  mix  them  in  a  third 
bottle  and  call  it  "child." 

We  have  now  a  child  of  a  red  father  and  a  blue  mother;  and 
we  find  that  this  child  is  not  all  red,  nor  all  blue,  but  part  red  and 
part  blue. 

It  is  like  the  father,  for  it  has  red  beads ;  it  is  like  the  mother, 
for  it  has  blue  beads. 

It  is  unlike  the  father,  for  the  father  has  no  blue,  and  it  is  un- 
like the  mother,  for  the  mother  has  no  red. 

Here  we  have  a  simple  illustration  of  "heredity"  and  "varia- 
tion." 

Now,  could  we  blame  the  "child"  bottle  for  having  red  and  blue 
beads  in  it;  or  could  we  blame  the  "child"  bottle  for  having  no 
yellow  and  no  green  beads  in  it? 

But  that  is  an  example  of  a  simple  mixture  of  two  ancestral 
strains.  We  have  to  do  with  mixtures  of  millions  of  strains. 

Let  us  carry  our  illustration  forward  another  generation. 

Take  our  blue  and  red  "child"  and  marry  him  to  the  child  of 
a  black  bottle  and  a  yellow  bottle. 

This  gives  us  a  marriage  between  Red-Blue  and  Black- Yellow. 

The  "child"  bottle  mixed  from  these  two  bottles  of  double  col- 
ours will  contain  four  colours. 

He  will  "inherit"  from  grandfather  Red  and  grandmother  Blue, 
from  grandfather  Black  and  grandmother  Yellow,  and  from 
father  Red-Blue  and  mother  Black- Yellow. 

He  will  be  like  the  six  fore-parents,  but  different  from  each  of 
them. 

Can  we  blame  this  "child"  bottle  for  being  made  up  of  red,  blue, 
black,  and  yellow?  Can  we  blame  it  for  having  no  purple  nor 
white  beads  in  its  composition  ?  No.  These  colours  were  mixed 
for  the  child,  and  not  by  it. 

How  could  there  be  white  or  purple  beads  in  this  bottle,  when 
there  were  no  white  nor  purple  beads  in  the  bottles  from  which 
it  was  filled  ? 

But  what  of  the  variation  amongst  brothers  and  sisters  ? 

That  is  easily  understood.  If  the  four  colours  in  the  ancestral 
bottles  are  evenly  mixed,  the  grandchildren  bottles  will  vary  from 
their  ancestors,  but  not  from  each  other. 

As  we  know  that  brothers  and  sisters  do  vary  from  each  other, 
we  must  conclude  that  the  hereditary  qualities  are  not  evenly 
mixed. 

18 


WHERE  DO  OUR  NATURES  COME  FROM? 

For  the  scientific  explanation  of  this  fact  I  must  refer  you  to 
The  Germ  Plasm,  by  Weissmann. 

For  our  purposes  it  is  enough  to  know  that  brothers  and  sis- 
ters do  vary  from  each  other,  and  that  they  so  vary  because  the 
ancestral  qualties  are  not  evenly  distributed  amongst  the  "sperms" 
and  the  "ova."  On  this  head  our  own  knowledge  and  observation 
do  not  leave  any  room  for  doubt. 

It  is  as  if  in  the  case  of  our  marriage  of  Red-Blue  and  Black- 
Yellow  there  were  three  child-bottles,  of  which  one  got  more  red 
and  yellow,  one  more  blue  and  red,  and  one  more  yellow  and  blue 
than  the  others.  So  that  the  three  brother-bottles  would  differ 
from  their  fore-parents  and  from  each  other. 

And  as  it  would  be  foolish  to  blame  the  second  bottle  for  having 
less  red  in  it  than  the  first,  so  it  is  foolish  to  blame  a  human  child 
for  having  less  intellect  or  less  industry  than  his  brothers. 

If  you  refer  to  the  masterly  description  of  the  impregnation  of 
the  ova  given  in  Haeckel's  great  work,  The  Evolution  of  Man, 
you  will  find  that  the  heredity  of  brothers  is  largely  a  matter  of 
accident.  See  the  plate  and  explanation  on  page  130  in  the  first 
volume. 

The  "variation"  in  brothers  and  sisters  is  like  the  variation  in 
the  mixing  of  beads  in  our  bottles. 

It  is  as  though  we  made  several  tartan  plaids  of  the  same  four 
colours,  but  in  different  patterns. 

It  is  like  dealing  hands  of  cards  from  a  shuffled  pack.  There 
are  four  suits,  but  one  hand  may  be  rich  in  clubs,  another  in  dia- 
monds. 

And  who  in  a  game  of  whist  would  blame  his  partner  for  hold- 
ing no  trumps  in  his  hand?  The  partner  could  only  play  the 
trumps  dealt  out  to  him. 

In  no  way  can  a  child  control  the  pre-natal  shuffling  or  dealing 
of  the  ancestral  pack. 

Now,  as  to  atavism,  or  breeding  back.  In  the  ancestral  bottles 
called  men  and  women  there  are  millions  of  different  kinds  of 
beads.  And  it  sometimes  happens  that  a  particular  kind  of  bead 
(or  quality)  which  has  lain  dormant  for  a  long  time — perhaps  for 
a  thousand  years — will  crop  up  in  a  new  mixing  that  goes  to  make 
a  "child-bottle,"  and  so  that  child  may  be  less  like  its  own  parents 
than  like  some  ancestor  who  has  been  dead  and  forgotten  for  cen- 
turies. 

In  the  case  of  the  man  with  the  seven  ape  muscles,  mentioned 
by  Darwin,  the  breeding  back  must  have  reached  millions  of  years. 

This  "lying  doggo,"  or  inactive,  of  some  hereditary  trait,  may  be 

19 


NOT  GUILTY 

likened  to  the  action  of  a  kaleidoscope.  We  do  not  see  all  the 
fragments  of  coloured  glass  at  every  turn.  But  they  are  all  there. 
We  do  not  see  the  same  pattern  twice ;  yet  the  patterns  are  made 
almost  of  the  same  colours  and  the  same  pieces. 

And  now  I  think  we  have  got  a  clear  idea  of  the  meanings  of 
the  words  "heredity,"  "variation,"  and  "atavism,"  and  the  most 
timid  reader  will  not  be  afraid  of  them  any  more. 

There  is  no  need,  for  our  purpose,  to  wrestle  with  severe  sci- 
ence. The  reader  may  find  for  himself  all  about  "pangenesis"  in 
Darwin,  and  about  the  "germ  plasm"  in  Weissmann.  Here  we 
will  not  tax  our  memories  with  such  weird  words  as  "biophors," 
"gemmules,"  "ids,"  "idents,"  and  "determinants."  Our  similes 
of  beads,  tartans,  and  cards  will  serve  us  well  enough. 

The  only  objection  to  our  similes  is  that  they  are  t»o  simple. 
The  mixture  of  bloods  in  descent  is  very  much  more  extensive 
than  our  mixture  of  cards  or  beads. 

If  we  trace  a  child's  descent  back  only  four  generations  we 
find  that  he  has  no  less  than  thirty  fore-parents  belonging  to  six- 
teen different  families.  Another  generation  would  reach  thirty- 
two  families.  If  we  go  back  to  twenty  generations  we  find  the 
number  of  families  drawn  upon  to  be  over  a  million. 

But  Darwin  speaks  of  "thousands  of  generations."  Does  not 
this  suggest  the  wonderful  possibilities  of  variation  and  atavism  ? 

Imagine  the  variety  of  character  and  physique  in  a  city  like 
London.  Then  remember  that  each  one  of  us  is  descended  from 
more  ancestors,  and  of  much  wider  varieties,  than  all  the  popula- 
tion of  London.  And  to  hold  a  man  answerable  for  his  inheri- 
tance from  those  motley  myriads  of  men  and  women  is  to  hold 
him  answerable  for  the  natures  and  the  actions  of  millions  of 
human  beings  whom  he  never  saw,  of  whom  he  never  heard. 

We  all  know  that  the  different  races  of  men  differ  from  each 
other  in  colour,  in  features,  and  in  capacity.  We  have  only  to 
think  for  a  little  of  the  Japanese,  the  Americans,  the  Spaniards, 
and  the  Swedes,  to  feel  the  full  force  of  the  term  "racial  charac- 
teristics." 

We  know  that  there  is  a  great  difference  between  the  Irish  and 
the  Scotch.  We  know  that  there  is  a  great  difference  between  the 
Italians  and  the  Dutch.  We  know  the  strongly  marked  pecu- 
liarities of  the  Jews  and  the  Greeks. 

Now,  to  blame  a  man  for  his  nature  is  to  blame  him  for  not 
being  like  some  other  man.  And  how  absurd  it  would  be  to  blame 
a  Norwegian  for  not  being  like  a  Jew,  or  a  Gascon  for  not  being 
like  a  Scot. 

20 


WHERE  DO  OUE  NATURES  COME  FROM? 

The  Italians  are  wayward  and  impulsive :  the  Dutch  are  stead- 
fast and  cautious.  Is  it  reasonable  to  blame  the  one  for  not  being 
like  the  other  ? 

If  a  child  is  born  of  an  Italian  father  and  an  Irish  mothei,  is 
it  reasonable  to  expect  that  child  to  be  as  cool  and  methodical  as 
the  child  of  Dutch  and  Scottish  parents? 

Is  it  not  the  same  with  personal  as  with  racial  traits  ? 

We  have  all  heard  of  "Spanish  pride,"  and  of  "Irish  wit";  we 
have  all  heard  of  the  pride  of  the  Howards,  and  the  genius  of  the 
Bachs. 

To  blame  a  Spaniard  for  being  proud  is  to  blame  him  for  being 
born  of  Spanish  parents.  To  blame  a  Howard  for  his  pride  is 
to  blame  him  for  being  a  son  of  the  Howards. 

Bach  was  a  musical  genius,  Sheridan  was  witty,  Nelson  was 
brave,  Rembrandt  was  a  great  painter,  because  there  were  golden 
beads  in  their  ancestral  bottles.  But  they  did  not  put  the  golden 
beads  there.  They  inherited  them,  as  Lord  Tomnoddy  inherits 
his  lands,  his  riches,  and  his  plentiful  lack  of  wit. 

We  should  not  expect  the  daughter  of  Carmen  to  be  like  the 
daughter  of  Jeannie  Deans,  nor  the  son  of  Rawdon  Crawley  to  be 
like  the  son  of  Parson  Adams.  We  should,  indeed,  no  more  think 
of  praising  a  man  for  inheriting  the  genius  or  the  virtues  of  his 
ancestors,  than  we  should  think  of  praising  a  man  for  inheriting 
his  parents'  wealth. 

We  have  laughed  over  the  Gilbertian  satire  on  our  patriotic 
boastfulness : 

For  he  himself  has  said  it, 
And  it's  greatly  to  his  credit, 

That  he  is  an  Englishman. 
He  might  have  been  a  Rooshian, 
A  Frenchman,  Turk,  or  Prooshian, 

Or  even  Italian; 
But  in  spite  of  all  temptations 
To  belong  to  other  nations, 

He  remains  an  Englishman. 

All  of  us  can  feel  the  point  of  those  satirical  lines;  but  some 
of  us  have  yet  to  learn  that  a  man  can  no  more  help  being  born 
"good"  or  "bad,"  "smart"  or  "dull,"  than  he  can  help  being  born 
English,  French,  or  Prooshian,  or  "even  Italian." 

Some  of  our  ancestors  conquered  at  Hastings,  and  some  of  them 
did  not.  Some  of  our  ancestors  held  the  pass  at  Thermopylae,  and 
others  ran  away  at  Bunker's  Hill.  Some  were  saints,  and  some 
were  petty  larcenists;  some  were  philosophers,  and  some  were 

21 


NOT  GUILTY 

pirates;  some  were  knights  and  some  were  savages;  some  were 
gentle  ladies,  some  were  apes,  and  some  were  hogs.  And  we  in- 
herit from  them  all. 

We  are  all  of  us  great-great-grandchildren  of  the  beasts.  We 
carry  the  bestial  attributes  in  our  blood:  some  more,  some  less. 
Who  amongst  us  is  so  pure  and  exalted  that  he  has  never  been 
conscious  of  the  bestial  taint?  Who  amongst  us  has  not  fought 
with  wild  beasts — not  at  Ephesus,  but  in  his  own  heart? 

Some  of  our  ancestors  wore  tails!  Is  it  strange  that  some 
of  our  descendants  should  have  what  Winwood  Reade  called 
"tailed  minds"?  The  ghosts  of  old  tragedies  haunt  the  gloomy 
vestibules  of  many  human  minds.  The  Bottom  Dog  may  often 
be  possessed  of  ancestral  devils. 

He  that  is  without  inherited  taint  among  us,  let  him  cast  the  first 
stone. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 
THE  BEGINNINGS 
OF  MORALS 


WHAT  do  we  mean  by  the  words  "sin,"  and  "vice,"  and 
"crime"? 
Sin  is  disobedience  of  the  laws  of  God. 
Crime  is  disobedience  of  the  laws  of  men. 

Vice  is  disobedience  of  the  laws  of  nature. 

I  say  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  known  law  of  God :  that 
the  so-called  laws  of  God  were  made  by  men  in  God's  name,  and 
that  therefore  the  word  "sin"  need  trouble  us  no  more.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  sin. 

I  say  that  since  there  are  bad  laws  as  well  as  good  laws,  a 
crime  may  be  a  good  instead  of  a  bad  act.  For  though  it  is  wrong 
to  disobey  a  good  law,  it  may  be  right  to  disobey  a  bad  law. 

And  now  what  do  we  mean  by  the  words  "good"  and  "bad," 
"moral"  and  "immoral"? 

We  call  an  act  good  when  it  "makes  good" ;  when  its  effects  are 
beneficial.  We  call  an  act  bad  when  it  "makes  bad";  when  its 
effects  are  injurious. 

What  are  "morals"?  My  dictionary  says,  "the  doctrine  of 
man's  moral  duties  and  social  relations";  and  in  Crabbe's  Syno- 
nyms I  find :  "By  an  observance  of  good  morals  we  become  good 
members  of  society." 

The  italics  are  mine.  Morals  are  the  standard  of  social  con- 
duct. All  immoral  conduct  is  anti-social,  and  all  anti-social  con- 
duct is  immoral. 

If  there  were  only  one  man  in  the  world  he  could  not  act  im- 
morally, for  there  would  be  no  other  person  whom  his  acts  could 
injure  or  offend. 

Where  two  persons  live  together  either  may  act  immorally,  for 
he  may  so  act  as  to  injure  or  offend  his  companion. 

Any  act  is  immoral  and  wrong  which  needlessly  injures  a  fel- 
low creature.  But  no  act  is  immoral  or  wrong  which  does  not 
directly  or  indirectly  inflict  needless  injury  upon  any  fellow 
creature. 

23 


NOT  GUILTY 

I  say,  "needless  injury";  for  it  may  sometimes  be  right  and  nec- 
essary to  injure  a  fellow  creature. 

If  it  is  wrong  to  inflict  needless  injury  upon  our  fellows,  it  is 
right  to  defend  our  fellows  and  ourselves  from  the  attacks  of  those 
who  would  needlessly  injure  us. 

Any  act  which  inflicts  "needless"  injury  upon  a  fellow  creature 
is  immoral ;  but  no  act  which  does  not  inflict  needless  injury  upon 
a  fellow  creature  is  immoral. 

That  is  the  root  of  my  moral  code.  It  may  at  first  seem  in- 
sufficient, but  I  think  it  will  be  found  to  reach  high  enough,  wide 
enough,  and  deep  enough  to  cover  all  true  morality.  For  there  is 
hardly  any  act  a  man  can  perform  which  does  not  affect  a  fellow 
creature. 

For  instance,  if  a  man  takes  to  drink,  or  neglects  his  health, 
he  injures  others  as  well  as  himself.  For  he  becomes  a  less 
agreeable  and  a  less  useful  member  of  society.  He  takes  more 
from  the  common  stock,  and  gives  back  less.  He  may  even  be- 
come an  eyesore,  or  a  danger,  or  a  burden  to  his  fellows.  A 
cricketer  who  drank,  or  neglected  to  practise,  would  be  acting  as 
immorally  towards  the  rest  of  the  team  as  he  would  if  he  "fielded 
carelessly  or  batted  selfishly.  Because,  speaking  morally,  a  man 
belongs  not  only  to  himself,  but  also  to  the  whole  human  race. 

Where  Did  Morals  Come  From? 

Morals  do  not  come  by  revelation,  but  by  evolution.  Morals 
are  not  based  upon  the  commands  of  God,  but  upon  the  nature 
and  the  needs  of  man.  Our  churches  attribute  the  origin  of 
morals  to  the  Bible.  But  the  Egyptians  and  Babylons  had  moral 
codes  before  Moses  was  born  or  the  Bible  written.  Thousands  of 
years,  tens  of  thousands  of  years,  perhaps  millions  of  years  before 
Abraham,  there  were  civilisations  and  moral  codes. 

Even  before  the  coming  of  man  there  were  the  beginnings  of 
morals  in  the  animal  world. 

When  I  was  a  boy,  we  were  taught  that  acts  were  right  or 
wrong  as  they  were  pleasing  or  displeasing  to  the  God  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible. 

There  were  two  kinds  of  men — good  men  and  bad  men.  The 
good  men  might  expect  to  succeed  in  business  here  and  go  to 
heaven  hereafter.  The  bad  men  were  in  peril  of  financial  frosts 
in  this  world,  and  of  penal  fires  in  the  world  to  come. 

As  I  grew  older  and  began  to  think  for  myself,  I  broke  from 
that  teaching,  and  at  last  came  to  see  that  all  acts  were  wrong 

24 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MOKALS 

which  caused  needless  injury  to  others ;  that  the  best  and  happiest 
man  was  he  who  most  earnestly  devoted  himself  to  making  others 
happy ;  that  all  wrong-doing  sprang  from  selfishness,  and  all  well- 
doing from  unselfishness ;  that  all  moral  acts  were  social  acts,  and 
all  immoral  acts  unsocial  acts;  and  that  therefore  Socialism  was 
good,  and  Individualism  was  evil. 

But  as  to  the  beginning  of  the  social  virtues  I  was  puzzled. 

In  most  religions  morality  is  supposed  to  have  been  established 
by  divine  revelation.  Men  did  not  know  right  from  wrong  until 
God  gave  them  codes  of  laws  ready-made;  and  even  after  men 
had  the  divine  laws  given  to  them  they  were  by  nature  so  de- 
praved that  they  could  only  obey  those  laws  by  the  special  grace 
of  God. 

The  idea  that  morality  was  slowly  built  up  by  evolution  was 
first  given  to  the  world  by  Spencer  and  Darwin.  It  has  since 
been  elaborated  by  other  writers,  notably  by  Winwood  Reade  and 
Prince  Kropotkin. 

The  notions  of  "the  struggle  for  existence"  and  "the  survival 
of  the  fittest"  have  been  too  commonly  taken  to  mean  that  life  in 
the  animal  world  is  one  tragic  series  of  ruthless  single  combats ; 
that  every  man's  hand  always  was  and  ever  must  be  against 
the  hand  of  every  man,  and  every  beast's  tooth  and  claw  against 
the  tooth  and  claw  of  every  beast. 

But  if  we  read  Darwin's  Descent  of  Man  and  Prince  Kropot- 
kin's  Mutual  Aid  Among  Animals  and  Winwood  Reade's  Martyr- 
dom of  Man,  we  shall  find  that  the  law  of  natural  selection  does 
not  favour  any  such  horrible  conclusions. 

Self-preservation  may  be  the  first  law  of  nature;  but  it  is  not 
the  last  law  of  nature.  In  union  is  strength.  The  gregarious  ani- 
mals— those  which  live  in  communities  of  flocks  and  herds — as 
:he  apes,  the  deer,  the  rooks,  the  bees,  the  bison,  the  swallows, 
md  the  wolves,  gain  by  mutual  aid  in  the  struggle  for  existence, 
ic'or,  by  reason  of  their  numbers  and  their  union,  they  are  better 
jible  to  watch  for  the  approach  and  to  defeat  the  attacks  of  their 
iinemies. 

From  this  union  and  mutual  aid  of  the  gregarious  animals  arose 
he  social  instincts. 

The  sociable  animals  would  doubtless  be  first  drawn  together 
>artly  for  safety  and  partly  for  company. 

Sheep,  deer,  buffalo,  wild  dogs,  ants,  rooks,  and  other  social 
mimals  enjoy  the  companionship  of  their  own  kind.  They  play 
ogether,  feed  together,  sleep  together,  hunt  together,  and  help 
ach  other  to  evade  or  resist  their  common  foes.  They  share  in 

25 


NOT  GUILTY 

social  pleasures,  and  practise  some  of  the  social  virtues. 

And  as  the  more  sociable  animals  would  be  safest,  and  the  less 
sociable  animals  most  exposed  to  danger,  natural  selection  would 
tend  to  raise  the  level  of  sociability,  because  the  stock  would  be 
bred  more  from  sociable  than  from  unsociable  animals. 

The  apes  are  social  animals,  and  also  imitative  animals.  The 
ape-like  forbears  of  man  would  unite  for  safety  and  for  society, 
and,  being  imitative,  would  observe  and  copy  any  invention  or 
discovery  due  to  lucky  accident  or  to  the  sharper  wits  amongst 
their  number. 

Like  the  lower  animals,  they  would  play  together,  feed  together, 
fight  in  companies,  defend  or  rescue  their  young,  and  post  sen- 
tinels to  watch  for  the  approach  of  danger. 

Long  before  man  had  thought  of  any  ghost  or  God,  some  rude 
form  of  order  and  morality  would  exist  in  the  families  and  tribes 
of  men,  as  some  rude  form  of  order  and  morality  exists  to-day 
amongst  the  wild  elephants,  the  bees,  the  deer,  and  other  creatures. 

I  once  saw  two  horses  fighting  in  a  field.  A  third  and  older 
horse  came  up  and  parted  them,  and  then  drove  them  away  in 
opposite  directions.  So  in  the  earliest  human  tribes  would  the 
leaders  prevent  brawling  and  exact  obedience. 

Partly  from  such  action,  and  partly  from  the  training  of  the 
young,  would  be  formed  the  habit  of  resenting  and  of  punishing 
certain  unsocial  acts  which  the  herd  or  tribe  felt  to  be  opposed  to 
the  general  welfare. 

One  of  the  first  faults  man  would  brand  as  immoral  would  be 
cowardice.  One  of  the  earliest  moral  laws  would,  perhaps,  re- 
semble the  Viking  law  that  men  who  proved  cowards  in  battle 
should  be  buried  in  the  swamp  under  a  hurdle. 

Imitation,  habit,  natural  selection,  and  the  love  of  approbation, 
would  all  tend  to  fix  and  improve  these  crude  customs,  and  from 
these  simple  beginnings  would  grow  up  laws  and  morals  and  con- 
science. 

Very  likely  the  earliest  human  groups  were  family  groups,  or 
clans.  These  clans  would  fight  against  other  clans. 

The  next  step  may  have  been  the  union  of  clans  into  tribes,  and 
the  next  the  banding  of  tribes  into  nations. 

At  present  men  are  mostly  united  as  nations.  Each  nation  has 
its  own  laws,  its  own  morality,  and  its  own  patriotism,  and  the 
different  nations  are  more  or  less  hostile  to  each  other;  as  for- 
merly were  the  tribes  or  clans. 

The  final  triumph  will  be  the  union  of  the  nations  in  one  broth- 
erhood, and  the  abolition  of  war. 

26 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MOEALS 

The  red  Indian  does  not  think  it  immoral  to  murder  an  Indian 
of  another  tribe.  The  European  does  not  think  it  immoral  to  kill 
thousands  of  men  in  battle.  The  evolution  of  morality  has  not 
yet  carried  us  as  far  as  universal  peace.  Nor  has  any  revelation 
of  God  forbidden  war. 

We  do  not  need  to  think  long,  nor  to  look  far  to  sec  that  differ- 
ent conditions  have  evolved  different  moral  codes. 

But  all  morals  may  be  divided  into  two  classes :  True  Morals 
and  Artificial  Morals. 

True  morals  are  all  founded  on  the  rule  that  it  is  wrong  to  cause 
needless  injury  to  any  fellow-creature. 

Artificial  morals  are  those  morals  invented  by  priests,  kings, 
lawyers,  poets,  soldiers,  and  philosophers. 

Moral  codes  made  by  rulers,  or  by  ruling  classes,  are  generally 
founded  on  expediency;  and  expediency,  as  understood  by  the 
rulers  or  the  ruling  classes,  usually  means  those  things  that  are 
expedient  for  themselves. 

Now  that  which  is  expedient  for  a  king,  a  tyrant,  or  an  aristoc- 
racy may  be  far  from  expedient  for  the  people  over  vrhom  they 
rule.  So  we  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  many  of  the  laws  of 
barbarous  and  civilised  nations  are  immoral  laws.  Our  British 
game  laws,  land  laws,  poor  laws,  and  very  many  of  the  criminal 
laws,  and  the  laws  relating  to  property,  are  immoral  laws. 

But  there  is  no  revelation  of  God  condemning  those  laws.  Nor 
does  any  European  church  oppose  those  laws,  nor  denounce  them 
as  immoral. 

Then  as  to  public  opinion — our  unwritten  moral  code — there 
is  no  clear  and  logical  system  of  moral  principles.  For  instance, 
the  public  think  it  a  pity  that  men  should  be  out  of  work,  that 
women  should  starve,  that  little  children  should  be  sent  to  school 
unwashed  and  unfed.  But  the  public  do  not  think  these  things 
immoral.  The  fact  is,  the  British  people,  after  more  than  a  thou- 
sand years  of  Christian  teaching,  do  not  know  what  true  moral- 
ity is.  And  how  should  they  know,  when  their  teachers  in  the 
church  do  not  know? 

The  churches  have  always  drawn  their  morality  from  the  Bible, 
and  have  always  tried  to  fit  it  in  with  the  immoral  codes  made  by 
kings,  soldiers,  landlords,  money-lenders,  and  other  immoral  per- 
sons. 

The  Church  has  often  pleaded  for  "charity"  to  the  poor,  but 
has  never  come  to  the  rescue  of  the  "Bottom  Dog" ;  because  the 
churches  have  never  understood  morality  nor  human  nature. 

It  is  science,  and  not  the  revelation  of  God,  nor  the  teaching 

27 


NOT  GUILTY 

of  priests,  that  has  enabled  us  to  begin  to  understand  human 
nature,  and  has  made  it  possible  to  build  up  a  systematic  code  of 
true  morality. 

As  to  what  morality  is,  I  claim  it  is  the  rule  of  social  conduct : 
the  measure  of  right  conduct  between  man  and  man ;  and  I  shall 
build  up  my  whole  case  upon  the  simple  moral  rule  that  "every 
act  is  immoral  which  needlessly  injures  any  fellow-creature." 
This  rule  is  only  an  old  truth  in  a  new  form.  It  is,  indeed,  just 
a  modern  reading  of  the  "Golden  Rule."  It  is  not  the  rule  itself, 
but  the  use  I  shall  put  it  to,  that  is  likely  to  flutter  certain  moral 
dovecotes.  As  to  the  rule,  the  teachings  of  most  great  moralists, 
of  all  times  and  nations,  go  to  prove  it.  As,  for  instance : 

LAO  TZE,  a  Chinese  moralist,  before  Confucius,  said :  "The 
good  I  would  meet  with  goodness,  the  not-good  I  would  also  meet 
with  goodness." 

CONFUCIUS,  Chinese  moralist,  said:  "What  you  do  not  want 
done  to  yourself,  do  not  do  to  others." 

He  also  said:  "Benevolence  is  to  be  in  one's  most  inward 
heart  in  sympathy  with  all  things ;  to  love  all  men ;  and  to  allow 
no  selfish  thoughts." 

The  same  kind  of  teaching  is  found  in  the  Buddhist  books, 
and  in  the  rock  edicts  of  King  Asoka.  Here  is  a  Buddhist  pre- 
cept, which  has  a  special  interest  as  touching  the  origin  of  morals. 

"Since  even  animals  can  live  together  in  mutual  reverence,  con- 
fidence, and  courtesy,  much  more  should  you,  O  brethren,  so  let 
your  light  shine  forth  that  you  may  be  seen  to  dwell  in  like  man- 
ner together." 

The  Hebrew  moralists  often  sounded  the  same  note.  In  Le- 
viticus we  find :  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself." 

In  Proverbs :  "If  thine  enemy  be  hungry  give  him  bread  to  eat, 
and  if  he  be  thirsty  give  him  water  to  drink." 

In  the  Talmud  it  is  written :  "Do  not  unto  others  that  which  it 
would  be  disagreeable  to  you  to  suffer  yourself ;  that  is  the  main 
part  of  the  law." 

We  ha\  e  the  same  idea  expressed  by  Christ :  "All  things  there- 
fore whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto  you,  even  so 
do  ye  also  unto  them,  for  this  is  the  Law  and  the  Prophets." 

SEXTUS,  a  teacher  of  Epictetus,  said:  "What  you  wish  your 
neighbours  to  be  to  you,  such  be  also  to  them." 

ISOCRATES  said:  "Act  towards  others  as  you  desire  others  to 
act  towards  you." 

KING  ASOKA  said:  "I  consider  the  welfare  of  all  people  as 
something  for  which  I  must  work." 

28 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MORALS 

In  the  Buddhist  "Katha  Sarit  Sagara"  it  is  written:  "Why 
should  we  cling  to  this  perishable  body?  In  the  eye  of  the  wise 
the  only  thing  it  is  good  for  is  to  benefit  one's  fellow  creatures." 

And  another  Buddhist  author  expresses  the  same  idea  with  still 
more  force  and  beauty :  "Full  of  love  for  all  things  in  the  world, 
practising  virtue  in  order  to  benefit  others — this  man  alone  is 
happy." 

But  even  when  the  moralists  did  not  lay  down  the  "Golden 
Rule,"  they  taught  that  the  cause  of  sin  and  of  suffering  was 
selfishness;  and  they  spoke  strongly  against  self-pity,  and  self- 
love,  and  self-aggrandisement. 

What  is  the  lesson  of  Buddha,  and  of  the  Indian,  Persian,  and 
Greek  moralists?  Buddha  went  out  into  the  world  to  search  for 
the  cause  of  human  sin  and  sorrow.  He  found  the  cause  to  be 
self-indulgence  and  the  cure  to  be  self-conquest.  "The  cause  of 
pain,"  he  said,  "is  desire."  And  this  lesson  was  repeated  over  and 
over  again  by  Socrates,  Plato,  Epictetus,  Marcus  Aurelius,  and 
Plutarch,  and  Seneca. 

The  moral  is  that  selfishness  is  bad,  and  unselfishness  is  good. 

And  this  moral  is  backed  by  the  almost  universal  practice  of  all 
men  in  all  ages  and  of  all  races  in  testing  or  weighing  the  virtue 
or  the  value  of  any  person's  conduct. 

What  is  the  common  assay  for  moral  gold?  The  test  of  the 
motive.  Sir  Gorgio  Midas  has  given  £100,000  to  found  a  Midas 
hospital.  What  says  the  man  in  the  street  ?  "Ah !  fine  advertise- 
ment for  the  Midas  pills !"  Mr.  Queech,  the  grocer  and  church- 
warden, has  given  £5  to  the  new  Methodist  Sunday  School. 
"H'm !"  says  the  cynical  average  man,  "a  sprat  to  catch  a  mack- 
erel." Sir  Norman  Conquest,  Bart,  M.P.,  has  made  an  eloquent 
speech  in  favour  of  old-age  pensions.  Chigwin,  the  incorruptible, 
remarks  with  a  sniff  that  "it  looks  as  if  there  would  soon  be  a 
General  Election." 

What  do  these  gibes  mean?  They  mean  that  the  benevolence 
of  Messrs.  Midas,  Queech,  and  Conquest  is  inspired  by  selfishness, 
and  therefore  is  not  worthy,  but  base. 

Now,  when  a  gang  of  colliers  go  down  a  burning  pit  to  save 
life,  or  when  a  sailor  jumps  overboard  in  a  storm  to  save  a  drown- 
ing fireman,  or  when  a  Russian  countess  goes  to  Siberia  for  trying 
to  free  the  Russian  serfs,  there  is  no  sneer  heard.  Chigwin's 
fierce  eye  lights  up,  the  man  in  the  street  nods  approvingly,  and 
the  average  man  in  the  railway  compartment  observes  senten- 
tiously,  "That's  pluck." 

Well.  Is  it  not  clear  that  these  acts  are  approved  and  held 

29 


NOT  GUILTY 

good?  And  is  it  not  clear  that  they  are  held  to  be  good  because 
they  are  felt  to  be  unselfish? 

Now,  I  make  bold  to  say  that  in  no  case  shall  we  find  a  man 
or  woman  honoured  or  praised  by  men  when  his  conduct  is  be- 
lieved to  be  selfish.  It  is  always  selfishness  that  men  scorn.  It 
is  always  self-sacrifice  or  unselfish  service  they  admire.  This 
shows  us  that  deep  in  the  universal  heart  the  root  idea  of  morality 
is  social  service.  This  is  not  a  divine  truth :  it  is  a  human  truth. 

Selfishness  has  come  to  be  called  "bad"  because  it  injures  the 
many  without  benefiting  the  one.  Unselfishness  has  come  to  be 
called  "good"  because  it  brings  benefit  and  pleasure  to  one  and  all. 
"It  is  twice  bless'd :  it  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes." 

As  Marcus  Aurelius  expresses  it :  "That  which  is  not  for  the 
interest  of  the  whole  swarm  is  not  for  the  interest  of  a  single  bee." 
And  again  he  puts  it:  "Mankind  are  under  one  common  law; 
and  if  so  they  must  be  fellow-citizens,  and  belong  to  the  same  body 
politic.  From  whence  it  will  follow  that  the  whole  world  is  but 
one  commonwealth." 

And  Epictetus,  the  Greek  slave,  said  that  as  "God  is  the  father 
of  all  men,  then  all  men  are  brothers." 

For  countless  ages  this  notion  of  human  brotherhood,  and  of  the 
evil  of  self-love,  has  been  to  morality  what  the  sap  is  to  the  tree. 
And  now  let  us  think  once  more  how  the  notion  first  came  into 
being. 

I  said  that  morality — which  is  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil — 
did  not  come  by  revelation  from  God,  but  by  means  of  evolution. 
And  I  said  that  this  idea  was  first  put  forth  by  Spencer  and  Dar- 
win, and  afterwards  dealt  with  by  other  writers. 

Darwin's  idea  was  two-fold.  He  held  that  man  inherited  his 
social  instincts  (on  which  morality  is  built)  from  the  lower  ani- 
mals ;  and  he  thought  that  very  likely  the  origin  of  the  social  in- 
stinct in  animals  was  the  relation  of  the  parents  to  their  young. 
Let  us  first  see  what  Darwin  said. 

In  Chapter  Four  of  The  Descent  of  Man  Darwin  deals  with 
"moral  sense."  After  remarking  that,  so  far  as  he  knows,  no  one 
has  approached  the  question  exclusively  from  the  side  of  natural 
history,  Darwin  goes  on : 

The  following  proposition  seems  to  me  in  a  high  degree  prob- 
able— namely,  that  any  animal  whatever,  endowed  with  well- 
marked  social  instincts,  the  parental  and  filial  affections  being 
here  included,  would  inevitably  acquire  a  moral  sense,  or  con- 

30 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MOKALS 

science,  as  soon  as  its  intellectual  powers  had  become  as  well, 
or  nearly  as  well,  developed  as  in  man. 

For,  firstly,  the  social  instincts  lead  an  animal  to  take  pleas- 
ure in  the  society  of  its  fellows,  and  feel  a  certain  amount  of 
sympathy  with  them,  and  to  perform  various  services  for 
them.  ... 

Every  one  must  have  noticed  how  miserable  dogs,  horses, 
sheep,  etc.,  are  when  separated  from  'their  companions,  and 
what  strong  mutual  affection  the  two  former  kinds,  at  least, 
shown  on  their  reunion.  .  .  . 

All  animals  living  in  a  body,  which  defend  themselves  or 
attack  their  enemies  in  concert,  must  indeed  be  in  some  degree 
faithful  to  one  another ;  and  those  -that  follow  a  leader  must 
be  in  some  degree  obedient.  When  the  baboons  in  Abyssinia 
plunder  a  garden,  they  silently  follow  a  leader,  and  if  an 
imprudent  young  animal  makes  a  noise,  he  receives  a  slap 
from  the  others  to  teach  him  silence  and  obedience.  .  .  . 

With  respect  to  the  impulse  which  leads  certain  animals  to 
associate  together,  and  to  aid  one  another  in  many  ways,  we 
may  infer  that  in  most  cases  they  are  impelled  by  the  same 
sense  of  satisfaction  or  pleasure  which  they  experience  in 
performing  other  instinctive  actions.  .  .  . 

In  however  complex  a  manner  this  feeling  (sympathy)  may 
have  originated,  as  it  is  one  of  high  importance  to  all  those 
animals  which  aid  and  defend  one  another,  it  will  have  been  in- 
creased through  natural  selection  for  those  communities  which 
included  the  greatest  number  of  sympathetic  members  would 
flourish  best  and  rear  the  greatest  number  of  offspring.  .  .  . 

Thus  the  social  instincts,  which  must  have  been  acquired  by 
man  in  a  very  rude  state,  and  probably  even  by  his  early  ape- 
like progenitors,  still  give  -the  impulse  to  some  of  his  best 
actions ;  but  his  actions  are  in  a  higher  degree  determined  by 
the  expressed  wishes  and  judgment  of  his  fellow-men,  and 
unfortunately  very  often  by  his  own  strong  selfish  desires. 

Those  quotations  should  be  enough  to  show  Darwin's  idea  of 
the  origin  of  the  social,  or  moral,  feelings.  But  I  shall  quote 
besides  Haeckel's  comment  on  Darwin's  theory. 

Speaking  of  the  "Golden  Rule"  in  his  Confessions  of  Faith  of 
a  Man  of  Science,  Haeckel  says : 

In  the  human  family  this  maxim  has  always  been  accepted 
as  self-evident ;  as  ethical  instinct  it  was  an  inheritance  derived 

31 


NOT  GUILTY 

from  our  animal  ancestors.  It  had  already  found  a  place 
among  the  herds  of  apes  and  other  social  mammals ;  in  a  similar 
manner,  but  with  wider  scope,  it  was  already  present  in  the 
most  primitive  communities  and  among  the  hordes  of  the  least 
advanced  savages.  Brotherly  love — mutual  support,  succour, 
protection,  and  the  like — had  already  made  its  appearance 
among  gregarious  animals  as  a  social  duty ;  for  without  it,  the 
continued  existence  of  such  societies  is  impossible.  Although 
at  a  later  period,  in  the  case  of  man,  these  moral  foundations 
of  society  came  to  be  much  more  highly  developed,  their  oldest 
prehistoric  source,  as  Darwin  has  shown,  is  to  be  sought  in 
the  social  instincts  of  animals.  Among  the  higher  vertebrates 
(dogs,  horses,  elephants,  etc.),  the  development  of  social  rela- 
tions and  duties  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  their  living 
together  in  orderly  societies.  Such  societies  have  for  man  also 
been  the  most  important  instrument  of  intellectual  and  moral 
progress. 

There  is  a  very  able  article  in  the  March,  1905,  issue  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  by  Prince  Kropotkin,  the  author  of  Mutual 
Aid,  on  Darwin's  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  moral  sense,  in  which 
the  striking  suggestion  is  made  that  primitive  man,  besides  inherit- 
ing from  animals  the  social  instinct,  also  copied  from  them  the  first 
rudiments  of  tribal  union  and  mutual  aid.  This  notion  may  be 
gathered  from  the  following  picturesque  passages : 

Primitive  man  lived  in  close  intimacy  with  animals.  With 
some  of  them  he  probably  shared  the  shelters  under  the  rocks, 
occasionally  the  caverns,  and  very  often  food.  .  .  . 

Our  primitive  ancestors  lived  with  the  animals,  in  the  midst 
of  them.  And  as  soon  as  they  began  to  bring  some  order  into 
their  observations  of  nature,  and  to  transmit  them  to  posterity, 
the  animals  and  their  life  supplied  them  with  the  chief  mate- 
rials for  their  unwritten  encyclopaedia  of  knowledge,  as  well 
as  for  their  wisdom,  which  they  expressed  in  proverbs  and 
sayings.  Animal  psychology  was  the  first  pschology  man  was 
aware  of — it  is  still  a  favourite  subject  of  talk  at  the  camp 
fires;  animal  life,  closely  interwoven  with  that  of  man,  was 
the  subject  of  the  very  first  rudiments  of  art,  inspiring  the  first 
engravers  and  sculptors,  and  entering  into  the  composition  of 
the  most  ancient  epical  traditions  and  cosmogonic 
myths.  .  .  . 

The  first  thing  which  our  children  learn  in  natural  history 

32 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MORALS 

is  something  about  the  beasts  of  prey — the  lions  and  the  tigers* 
But  the  first  thing  that  primitive  savages  must  have  learned 
about  nature  was  that  it  represents  a  vast  agglomeration  of  ani- 
mal clans  and  tribes;  the  ape  tribe,  so  nearly  related  to  man, 
the  ever-prowling  wolf  tribe,  the  knowing,  chattering  bird 
tribe,  the  ever-busy  insect  tribe,  and  on.  For  them  the  ani- 
mals were  an  extension  of  their  own  kin — only  so  much  wiser 
than  themselves.  And  the  first  vague  generalisation  which  men 
must  have  made  about  nature — so  vague  as  to  hardly  differ 
from  a  mere  impression — was  that  the  living  being  and  his  clan 
or  tribe  are  inseparable.  We  can  separate  them — they  could 
not;  and  it  seems  even  doubtful  whether  they  could  think  of 
life  otherwise  than  within  a  clan  or  a  tribe.  .  .  . 

And  that  man  who  had  witnessed  once  an  attack  of  wild 
dogs,  or  dholes,  upon  the  biggest  beasts  of  prey,  certainly 
realised,  once  and  for  ever,  the  irresistible  force  of  the  tribal 
unions,  and  the  confidence  and  courage  with  which  they  inspire 
every  individual.  Man  made  divinities  of  these  dogs,  and  wor- 
shipped them,  trying  by  all  sorts  of  magic  to  acquire  their 
courage. 

In  the  prairies  and  the  woods  our  earliest  ancestors  saw 
myriads  of  animals,  all  living  in  clans  and  tribes.  Countless 
herds  of  red  deer,  fallow  deer,  reindeer,  gazelles,  and  ante- 
lopes, thousands  of  droves  of  buffaloes  and  legions  of  wild 
horses,  wild  donkeys,  quaggas,  zebras,  and  so  on,  were  moving 
over  the  boundless  plains,  peacefully  grazing  side  by  side. 
Even  the  dreary  plateaus  had  their  herds  of  llamas  and  wild 
camels.  And  when  man  approached  these  animals,  he  ?oon 
realised  how  closely  connected  all  these  beings  were  in  their 
respective  droves  or  herds.  Even  when  they  seemed  fully  ab- 
sorbed in  grazing,  and  apparently  took  no  notice  of  the  others, 
they  closely  watched  each  other's  movements,  always  ready  to 
join  in  some  common  action.  Man  saw  that  all  the  deer  tribe, 
whether  they  graze  or  merely  gambol,  always  kept  sentries, 
which  never  release  their  watchfulness  and  never  are  late  to 
signal  the  approach  of  a  beast  of  prey ;  he  knew  how,  in  case  of 
a  sudden  attack,  the  males  and  the  females  would  encircle  their 
young  ones  and  face  the  enemy,  exposing  their  lives  for  the 
safety  of  the  feeble  ones;  and  how,  even  with  such  timid 
creatures  as  the  antelopes,  or  the  fallow  deer,  the  old  males 
would  often  sacrifice  themselves  in  order  to  cover  the  retreat  of 
the  herd.  Man  knew  all  that,  which  we  ignore  or  easily  forget, 
and  he  repeated  it  in  his  tales,  embellishing  the  acts  of  courage 

33 


NOT  GUILTY 

and  self-sacrifice  with  his  primitive  poetry,  or  mimicking  them 
in  his  religious  tribal  dances.  .  .  . 

Social  life — that  is,  we,  not  / — is,  in  the  eyes  of  primitive 
man,  the  normal  form  of  life.  It  is  life  itself.  Therefore  "we" 
must  have  been  the  normal  form  of  thinking  for  primitive 
man :  a  "category"  of  his  understanding,  as  Kant  might  have 
said.  And  not  even  "we,"  which  is  still  too  personal,  because 
it  represents  a  multiplication  of  the  "I's,"  but  rather  such  ex- 
pression as  "the  men  of  the  beaver  tribe,"  "the  kangaroo  men," 
or  "the  turtles."  This  was  the  primitive  form  of  thinking, 
which  nature  impressed  upon  the  mind  of  man. 

Here,  in  that  identification,  or,  we  might  even  say,  in  this 
absorption  of  the  "I"  by  the  tribe,  lies  the  root  of  all  ethical 
thought.  The  self-asserting  "individual"  came  much  later  on. 
Even  now,  with  the  lower  savages,  the  "individual"  hardly  ex- 
ists at  all.  It  is  the  tribe,  with  its  hard-and-fast  rules,  supersti- 
tions, taboos,  habits,  and  interests,  which  is  always  present  in 
the  mind  of  the  child  of  nature.  And  in  that  constant,  ever- 
present  identification  of  the  unit  with  the  whole  lies  the  sub- 
stratum of  all  ethics,  the  germ  out  of  which  all  the  subsequent 
conceptions  of  justice,  and  the  still  higher  conceptions  of 
morality,  grew  up  in  the  course  of  evolution. 

Besides  these  excellent  contributions  to  the  subject,  Prince 
Kropotkin  gives  us  other  new  and  striking  thoughts,  bearing  upon 
the  parental  source  of  the  social  feelings  indicated  by  Darwin. 
But  first  let  us  go  back  to  Darwin.  In  Chapter  Four  of  The  De- 
scent of  Man  Darwin  says: 

The  feeling  of  pleasure  from  society  is  probably  an  extension 
of  the  parental  or  filial  affections,  since  the  social  instinct 
seems  to  be  developed  by  the  young  remaining  for  a  long  time 
with  their  parents,  and  this  extension  may  be  attributed  in 
part  to  habit,  but  chiefly  to  natural  selection.  With  those  ani- 
mals which  were  benefited  by  living  in  close  association,  the 
individuals  which  took  the  greatest  pleasure  in  society  would 
best  escape  various  dangers,  whilst  those  that  cared  least  for 
their  comrades,  and  lived  solitary,  would  perish  in  greater 
numbers. 

Dr.  Saleeby,  in  the  Academy  in  the  spring  of  1905,  had  some 
interesting  remarks  upon  the  origin  of  altruism.  He  "finds  in  the 
breast  of  the  mammalian  mother  the  fount  whence  love  has 

24 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MORALS 

flowed,"  and  points  out  that  the  higher  we  go  in  the  mammalian 
scale  the  more  dependent  are  the  young  upon  their  mothers. 

After  describing  the  helplessness  of  the  human  baby,  he  con- 
tinues thus: 

Yet,  this  is  the  creature  which  has  spread  over  the  earth  so 
that  he  numbers  some  fifteen  hundred  millions  to-day.  He  is 
the  "lord  of  creation,"  master  of  creatures  bigger,  stronger, 
fleeter,  longer-lived  than  himself.  The  earth  is  his  and  the  ful- 
ness thereof.  Yet  without  love  not  one  single  specimen  of  him 
has  a  chance  of  reaching  maturity,  or  even  surviving  for  a 
week.  Verily  love  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world. 

Well,  upon  this  subject  of  the  parental  origin  of  altruism, 
Prince  Kropotkin  throws  another  light.  First,  alluding  to  Dar- 
win's cautious  handling  of  the  subject  of  the  maternal  origin 
of  social  feelings,  Prince  Kropotkin,  quotes  Darwin's  own  re- 
markable comment,  thus: 

This  caution  was  fully  justified,  because  in  other  places  he 
pointed  out  that  the  social  instinct  must  be  a  separate  instinct 
in  itself,  different  from  the  others — an  instinct  which  has  been 
developed  by  natural  selection  for  its  own  sake,  as  it  was  use- 
ful for  the  well-being  and  preservation  of  the  species.  It  is  so 
fundamental,  that  when  it  runs  against  another  instinct,  even 
one  so  strong  as  the  attachment  of  the  parents  to  their  off- 
spring, it  often  takes  the  upper  hand.  Birds,  when  the  time 
has  come  for  their  autumn  migration,  will  leave  behind  their 
tender  young,  not  yet  old  enough  for  a  prolonged  flight,  and 
follow  their  comrades. 

He  then  offers  the  following  suggestion : 

To  this  striking  illustration  I  may  also  add  that  the  social 
instinct  is  strongly  developed  with  many  lower  animals,  such 
as  the  land-crabs,  or  the  Molucca  crab;  as  also  with  certain 
fishes,  with  whom  it  hardly  could  be  considered  as  an  extension 
of  the  filial  or  parental  feelings.  In  these  cases  it  appears 
rather  an  extension  of  the  brotherly  or  sisterly  relations  or 
feelings  of  comradeship,  which  probably  develop  each  time  that 
a  considerable  number  of  young  animals,  having  been  hatched 
at  a  given  place  and  at  a  given  moment,  continue  to  live  to- 
gether— whether  they  are  with  their  parents  or  not.  It  would 

35 


NOT  GUILTY 

seem,  therefore,  more  correct  to  consider  the  social  and  the 
parental  instincts  as  two  closely  connected  instincts,  of  which 
the  former  is  perhaps  the  earlier,  and  therefore  the  stronger, 
and  which  both  go  hand  in  hand  in  the  evolution  of  the  animal 
world.  Both  are  favoured  by  natural  selection,  which  as  soon 
as  they  come  into  conflict  keeps  the  balance  between  the  two, 
for  the  ultimate  good  of  the  species. 

To  sum  up  all  these  ideas.  We  find  it  suggested  that  the  social 
feelings  from  which  morality  sprang,  were  partly  inherited  by 
man  from  his  animal  ancestors,  partly  imitated  from  observation 
of  the  animals  he  knew  so  well  in  his  wild  life. 

And  we  find  it  suggested  that  these  social  feelings  probably 
began  in  the  love  of  animals  for  their  young,  and  in  the  brother- 
hood and  comradeship  of  the  young  for  each  other. 

It  was  the  social  feelings  of  men  that  made  their  Bibles:  the 
Bibles  did  not  make  the  social  feelings. 

Morality  is  the  result  of  evolution,  not  of  revelation. 


CHAPTE  R  FIVE 
THE  ANCESTRAL 
STRUGGLE— WITHIN  US 

I  HAVE  spoken  of  the  "nature"  handed  down  to  us  by  our 
fore-parents.  I  might  have  said  "natures,"  for  our  inher- 
itance, being  not  from  one,  but  from  many,  is  not  simple, 
but  compound. 

We  too  commonly  think  of  a  man  as  an  Englishman  or  a 
Frenchman;  as  a  Londoner  or  a  Yorkshireman ;  as  good  or  bad. 

We  too  commonly  think  of  a  man  as  one  person,  instead  of  as 
a  mixture  of  many  persons.  As  though  John  Smith  were  all 
John  Smith,  and  always  John  Smith. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  an  unmixed  Englishman,  Irishman, 
or  Yorkshireman. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  an  unmixed  John  Smith. 

Englishmen  are  bred  from  the  Ancient  Briton,  from  the  Ro- 
man, from  the  Picts  and  Scots,  from  the  Saxons,  the  Danes,  the 
Norwegians,  the  Normans,  the  French.  All  these  varied  and  an- 
tagonistic bloods  were  mixed  in  centuries  ago. 

Since  then  the  mixing  has  gone  on,  plentifully  varied  by  inter- 
marriage with  Irish,  Scots,  Dutch,  Germans,  Belgians,  French, 
Italians,  Poles,  and  Spaniards.  We  have  had  refugees  and  immi- 
grants from  all  parts  of  Europe.  We  have  given  homes  to  the 
Huguenots,  and  the  Emigres  from  France,  to  the  Lollards  and  Lu- 
therans from  the  Netherlands,  to  crowding  fugitives  from  Russia, 
Holland,  Hungary,  Italy,  and  Greece.  We  have  absorbed  these 
foreigners  and  taken  them  into  our  blood.  And  the  descendants 
of  all  these  mixed  races  are  called  Englishmen. 

The  Londoner  is  a  mixture  of  all  those  races,  and  more.  From 
every  part  of  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  Wales ;  from  most  parts 
of  Europe,  from  many  parts  of  America  and  Asia,  and  even 
Africa,  streams  of  foreign  blood  have  flowed  in  to  make  the  Lon- 
doner. 

In  Yorkshire  there  are  several  distinct  races,  though  none  of 
them  are  pure.  There  is  one  Yorkshire  type  bearing  marks  of 
descent  from  the  Norsemen,  another  bearing  marks  of  de- 
scent from  the  Flemish  and  French  immigrants,  and  another  from 

37 


NOT  GUILTY 

the  Normandy  invaders.  I  have  seen  Vikings,  Belgians, 
and  Normans  all  playing  cricket  in  the  Yorkshire  County 
team. 

In  Ireland  there  are  Irishmen  from  Denmark  and  Norway, 
Irishmen  from  Ancient  Mongolia,  and,  especially  in  Kerry,  Irish- 
men who  seem  to  be  of  almost  pure  Iberian  type. 

The  Iberian  Irishman  is  short,  dark,  aquiline,  and  sardonic, 
with  black  hair  and  eyes,  and  a  moustache  more  like  a  Tartar's 
than  a  European's.  The  Viking  Irishman  is  big  and  burly,  with 
blue  or  grey  eyes,  and  reddish  hair  and  beard ;  the  difference  be- 
tween these  two  types  is  as  great  as  that  between  a  Saxon  and 
a  Spaniard. 

One  of  these  Irish  Iberians  marries  a  Yorkshire  Dane.  Their 
son  marries  the  daughter  of  a  Lancashire  Belgian  and  an  An- 
cient Briton  from  Flint ;  and  their  children  are  English. 

As  I  said  just  now,  we  think  of  John  Smith  as  all  John  Smith 
and  always  John  Smith. 

But  John  is  a  mixture  of  millions  of  men  and  women,  many  of 
them  as  different  from  each  other  as  John  Ridd  is  different  from 
Dick  Swiveller,  or  as  Diana  of  the  Crossways  is  different  from 
Betsy  Trotwood.  And  these  uncountable  and  conflicting  natures 
are  not  extinct :  they  are  alive  and  busy  in  the  motley  jumble  we 
call  John  Smith. 

John  is  not  all  John.  He  is,  a  great  deal  of  him,  Roman  soldier, 
Ancient  Briton,  Viking  pirate,  Flemish  weaver,  Cornish  fisher- 
man, Lowland  scholar,  Irish  grazier,  London  chorus  girl,  York- 
shire spinner,  Welsh  dairymaid,  and  a  host  of  other  gentle  and 
simple,  wild  and  tame,  gay  and  grave,  sweet  and  sour,  fickle  and 
constant,  lovable  and  repellent  ancestors;  from  his  great-great- 
grandparent,  the  hairy  treeman,  with  flat  feet  and  club  like  a 
young  larch,  to  his  respectable  father,  the  white-fronted,  silk- 
hatted  clerk  in  the  Pudsey  Penny  Savings  Bank. 

And,  being  as  he  is,  not  all  John  Smith,  but  rather  the  knotted, 
crossed,  and  tangled  mixture  of  Johns  and  Marys,  and  Smiths  and 
Browns  and  Robinsons,  that  has  been  growing  more  dense  and 
intricate  for  tens  of  thousands  of  years,  how  can  we  expect  our 
good  John  to  be  always  the  same  John  ? 

We  know  John  is  many  Johns  in  the  course  of  a  summer's  day. 
We  have  seen  him,  possibly,  skip  back  to  the  cave-man  in  a  spasm 
of  rage,  glow  with  the  tenderness  of  the  French  lady  who  died 
of  the  plague  in  the  Fourteenth  Century,  and  then  smile  the  smile 
of  the  merry  young  soldier  who  was  shot  at  Dettingen — all  in  the 
time  it  takes  him  to  clench  and  unclench  his  hand,  or  to  feel  in  his 

38 


THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE— WITHIN  US 

pocket  for  a  penny,  or  to  flash  a  glance  at  a  pretty  face  in  the 
crowd. 

John  Smith  is  not  English,  nor  Yorkshire ;  but  human.  He  is 
not  one  man;  but  many  men,  and,  which  counts  for  more,  many 
women. 

And  how  can  we  say  of  John  Smith  that  he  is  "good"  or  "bad"? 
It  is  like  saying  of  a  bottle  of  beads,  mixed  of  fifty  colours,  that  it 
is  red,  or  blue.  As  John's  ancestors  were  made  up  of  good  and 
bad,  and  as  he  is  made  up  of  them,  so  John  is  good  and  bad  in 
stripes  or  patches :  is  good  and  bad  by  turns. 

We  speak  of  these  mixed  natures  which  a  man  inherits  from 
his  fore-parents  as  his  "disposition" :  we  call  them  "the  qualities 
of  his  mind,"  and  we  wonder  when  we  find  him  inconsistent, 
changeable,  undecided.  Ought  we  to  be  surprised  that  the  con- 
tinual struggle  for  the  mastery  amongst  so  many  alien  natures 
leads  to  unlooked-for  and  unwished-for  results? 

Take  the  case  of  a  council,  a  cabinet,  a  regiment,  composed  of 
antagonistic  natures ;  what  happens  ?  There  are  disputes,  confu- 
sion, contradictions,  cross-purposes.  Well :  a  man  is  like  a  crowd, 
a  Parliament,  a  camp  of  ill-matched  foreign  allies.  Indeed,  he  is 
a  crowd — a  crowd  of  alien  and  ill-sorted  ancestors. 

The  Great  Arteries  of  Human  Nature 

But,  differ  from  each  other  as  we  may,  there  are  some  general 
qualities — some  human  qualities — common  to  most  of  us. 

These  common  qualities  may  be  split  into  two  kinds,  selfish  and 
unselfish. 

The  selfish  instincts  come  down  to  us  from  our  earlier  brute 
ancestors. 

The  unselfish  instincts  come  down  to  us  from  our  later  brute 
ancestors,  and  from  our  human  ancestors. 

Amongst  the  strongest  and  the  deepest  of  man's  instincts  are 
love  of  woman,  love  of  children,  love  of  pleasure,  love  of  art,  love 
of  humanity,  love  of  adventure,  and  love  of  praise. 

I  should  say  that  the  commonest  and  most  lasting  of  all  human 
passions  is  the  love  of  praise:  called  by  some  "love  of  approba- 
tion." 

From  this  great  trunk  impulse  there  spring  many  branches. 
Nearly  all  our  vanities,  ambitions,  aff ectations,  covetings,  are  born 
of  our  thirst  for  praise.  It  is  largely  in  the  hope  of  exciting  the 
wonder  or  the  admiration  of  our  fellows  that  we  toil  and  scramble 

39 


NOT  GUILTY 

and  snatch  and  fight,  for  wealth,  for  power,  for  place;  for  mas- 
terly or  daring  achievement. 

None  but  misers  love  money  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  for  what 
money  will  buy  that  men  covet  it;  and  the  most  desired  of  the 
things  money  will  buy  are  power  and  display :  the  value  of  which 
lies  in  the  astonishment  they  will  create,  and  the  flattery  they  will 
win. 

How  much  meaning  would  remain  to  such  proud  and  potent 
words  as  glory,  riches,  conquest,  fame,  hero,  triumph,  splendour, 
if  they  were  bereft  of  the  glamour  of  human  wonder  and  ap- 
plause ? 

What  man  will  bear  and  do  and  suffer  for  love  of  woman,  and 
woman  for  love  of  man;  what  both  will  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of 
their  children;  how  the  devotee  of  art  and  science,  literature,  or 
war,  will  cleave  to  the  work  of  his  choice;  with  what  eagerness 
the  adventurer  will  follow  his  darling  bent,  seeking  in  the  ends  of 
the  earth  for  excitement,  happy  to  gaze  once  more  into  the  "bright 
eyes  of  danger" ;  with  what  cheerful  steadfastness  and  unwearied 
self-denial  benevolence  will  labour  for  the  good  of  the  race;  is 
known  to  us  all.  What  we  should  remember  is  that  these  and 
other  powers  of  our  nature  act  and  react  upon  each  other:  that 
one  impulse  checks,  or  goads,  or  diverts  another. 

Thus  the  love  of  our  fellows  will  often  check  or  turn  aside  our 
love  of  ourselves.  Often  when  the  desire  for  praise  beckons  us 
the  dread  of  blame  calls  us  back  again.  The  love  of  praise  may 
even  lure  us  towards  an  act,  and  baulk  us  of  its  performance :  as 
when  a  cricketer  sacrifices  the  applause  of  the  crowd  in  order  to 
win  the  praise  of  captain  or  critics. 

"  So  will  the  lust  of  pleasure  struggle  against  the  lust  of  fame ; 
the  love  of  woman  against  the  love  of  art ;  the  passion  for  adven- 
ture against  the  desire  for  wealth ;  and  the  victory  will  be  to  the 
stronger. 

Let  us  look  into  the  human  heart  (the  best  way  is  to  look  into 
our  own)  and  see  Jiow  these  inherited  qualities  work  for  and 
against  each  other. 

One  of  the  strongest  checks  is  fear ;  another  is  what  we  call  con- 
science. 

Fear  springs  sometimes  from  "love  of  approbation" ;  we  shrink 
from  an  act  from  fear  of  being  found  out,  which  would  mean  the 
loss  of  that  esteem  we  so  prize.  Or  we  shrink  from  fear  of  bodily 
pain :  as  those  knew  well  who  invented  the  terrors  of  hell-fire. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  most  respectable  virtue  that  ought  to 
be  called  cowardice.  Deprive  virtue  of  its  "dare  nots,"  and  how 

40 


THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE— WITHIN  US 

many  "would  nots"  and  "should  nots"  might  survive?  Good 
conduct  may  not  mean  the  presence  of  virtue,  but  the  lack  of 
courage,  or  desire. 

But,  happily,  men  do  right,  also,  for  right's  sake;  and  because 
it  is  right ;  or  they  refrain  from  doing  wrong  because  it  is  wrong. 

The  bent  towards  right  conduct  arises  from  one  of  two  sources : 

1.  Education:  we  have  been  taught  that  certain  acts  are 

wrong. 

2.  Natural  benevolence :  a  dislike  to  injure  others. 

The  first  of  these — education — has  to  do  with  "environment"; 
the  second  is  part  of  heredity.  One  we  get  from  our  fellow-men, 
the  other  from  our  ancestors. 

Here  let  us  pause  to  look  into  that  much-preached-of  "mystery" 
of  the  "dual  consciousness,"  or  "double-self." 

We  all  know  that  men  often  do  things  which  they  know  to  be 
wrong.  When  we  halt  between  the  desire  to  do  a  thing,  and  the 
feeling  that  we  ought  not  to  do  it,  we  seem  to  have  two  minds 
within  us,  and  these  two  minds  dispute  about  the  decision. 

What  is  this  "mysterious"  double-self?  It  is  nothing  but  the 
contest  between  heredity  and  environment ;  and  is  not  mysterious 
at  all. 

Heredity  is  very  old.  It  reaches  back  to  the  beasts.  It  passes 
on  to  us,  generation  after  generation,  for  millions  of  years,  certain 
instincts,  impulses,  or  desires  of  the  beast. 

Environment  is  new.  It  begins  at  the  cradle.  It  prints  upon  us 
certain  lessons  of  right  and  wrong.  It  tells  us  that  we  ought  not 
to  do  certain  things. 

But  the  desire  to  do  those  things  is  part  of  our  heredity.  It  is 
in  our  blood.  It  is  persistent,  turbulent,  powerful.  It  rises  up 
suddenly,  with  a  glare  and  a  snarl,  like  a  wild  beast  in  its  lair. 
And  at  the  sound  of  its  roar,  and  the  flame  of  its  lambent  eyes, 
and  the  feel  of  its  fiery  breath,  memory  lifts  its  voice  and  hand, 
and  repeats  the  well-learned  lesson  with  its  "shall-nots." 

We  are  told  that  the  animal  impulses  dwell  in  the  "hind  brain," 
and  that  morals  and  thought  dwell  in  the  "fore  brain."  The  "dual 
personality,"  then,  the  "double-self,"  consists  of  the  two  halves 
of  the  brain ;  and  the  dispute  between  passion  and  reason,  or  be- 
tween desire  and  morality,  is  a  conflict  between  the  lower  man  and 
the  higher ;  between  the  old  Adam  and  the  new. 

But  it  is  also,  to  a  great  extent,  a  conflict  between  the  average 
man  and  the  hero,  or  leader. 

41 


We  inherit  the  roots  of  morality,  that  is  to.  say,  the  "social  in- 
stincts," or  impulses  of  unselfish  thoughts  for  others,  from  the  so- 
ciable animals.  But  what  we  call  "ethics,"  the  rules  or  laws  of 
moral  conduct,  have  been  slowly  built  up  by  human  teachers. 
These  teachers  have  been  men  with  a  special  genius  for  morals. 
They  have  made  codes  of  morals  higher  than  the  nature  of  the 
average  man  can  reach. 

But  the  average  man  has  been  taught  these  codes  of  morals 
in  his  childhood,  and  has  grown  up  in  unquestioning  respect  for 
them. 

So  when  his  baser  nature  prompts  him  to  an  act,  and  his  mem- 
ory repeats  the  moral  lesson  it  has  learnt,  we  have  the  nature 
of  the  average  man  confronted  by  the  teaching  of  the  superior  or 
more  highly  moral  man. 

And  there  is  naturally  a  conflict  between  the  desire  to  do  evil, 
and  the  knowledge  of  what  things  are  good.  It  is  not  easy  for 
Wat  Tyler,  Corporal  Trim,  or  Sir  John  Falstaff  to  follow  the 
moral  lines  laid  down  by  such  men  as  Buddha,  Seneca,  or  Socra- 
tes. Sir  John  knows  the  value  of  temperance ;  but  he  has  a  potent 
love  of  sack.  Wat  knows  that  it  is  good  for  a  man  to  govern  his 
temper;  but  he  is  a  choleric  subject,  and  "hefty"  with  a  ham- 
mer. There  was  a  lot  of  human  nature  in  the  shipwright,  who 
being  reminded  that  St.  Paul  said  a  man  was  better  single,  re- 
torted that  "St.  Paul  wasn't  a  North  Shields  man." 

Our  Possibilities 

We  know  very  well  that  some  qualities  may  make  either  for 
good  or  bad.  Strength,  ability,  courage,  emulation,  may  go  to  the 
making  of  a  great  hero,  or  a  great  criminal.. 

If  a  man's  bent,  or  teaching,  be  good,  he  will  do  better,  if  it  be 
evil  he  will  do  worse  by  reason  of  his  talents,  his  daring,  or  his 
resolution. 

Dirt  has  been  defined  as  "matter  in  the  wrong  place" :  badness 
might  be  often  defined  as  goodness  misapplied.  Courage  ill-di- 
rected is  foolhardiness ;  caution  in  excess  is  cowardice;  firmness 
overstrained  is  obstinacy. 

Many  of  our  inherited  qualities  are  what  we  call  "potentiali- 
ties" :  they  are  "possibilities,"  capabilities,  strong,  or  potential  for 
good  or  evil. 

Love  of  praise  may  drive  a  man  to  seek  fame  as  a  philanthro- 
pist, a  tyrant,  a  discoverer,  or  a  train-robber. 

Lore  of  adventure  and  love  of  fame  had  as  much  to  do  with 

42 


THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE— WITHEf  TO 

the  exploits  of  Oaude  Duval  and  Morgan,  the  buccaneer,  as  with 
those  of  Drake  or  Clive. 

Nelson  was  as  keen  for  fame  as  Buonaparte :  but  the  English- 
man loved  his  country ;  the  Corsican  himself. 

Doubtless  Torquemada  had  as  much  religious  zeal  as  St.  Fran- 
cis ;  but  the  one  breathed  curses,  the  other  blessings. 

Pugnacity  is  good  when  used  against  tyranny  or  wrong;  it  is 
bad  when  used  against  liberty  or  right. 

Men  of  brilliant  parts  have  failed  for  lack  of  industry  or  judg- 
ment. Men  of  noble  qualities  have  gone  to  ruin  because  of  some 
inborn  weakness,  or  bias  towards  vice.  Our  minds  "are  of  a  min- 
gled yarn,  good  and  ill  together."  Many  of  life's  most  tragic 
human  failures  have  been  "sweet  bells  jangled  out  of  tune  and 
harsh."  Ophelia  was  not  the  first  woman,  nor  the  last  by  many 
millions,  to  perish  through  reaching  for  flowers  that  grow  aslant 
the  brook.  If  virtue  is  often  cowardice,  frailty  is  often  love;  and 
the  words  of  Laertes  to  the  "churlish  priest"  might  frequently  be 
spoken  for  some  poor  "Bottom  Dog"  in  reproach  of  the  unjust 
censure  of  a  Pharisee:  "a  ministering  angel  shall  my  sister  be, 
when  thou  liest  howling." 

We  must  remember,  then,  that  the  happiness  or  unhappiness  of 
our  nature  depends  not  so  much  upon  any  special  quality  as  upon 
the  general  balance  of  the  whole. 

Poor  Oscar  Wilde  had  many  fine  qualities,  but  his  egotism,  his 
vicious  taint,  and,  perhaps,  his  unfortunate  surroundings,  drove 
him  to  shipwreck,  with  all  his  golden  talents  aboard.  Every  day 
noble  ships  run  upon  the  rocks;  every  day  brave  pennons  go 
down  in  the  press  of  the  battle,  and  are  trampled  in  the  blood  and 
dust ;  every  day  lackeys  ride  in  triumph,  and  princes  slave  on  the 
galleys;  every  day  the  sweet  buds  go  to  the  swine-trough,  and 
the  gay  and  fair  young  children  to  shame  or  the  jail. 

Some  fall  through  loving  too  much,  others  through  loving  not 
at  all.  Some  are  shattered  by  a  single  fault,  like  a  ruby  cup  with 
one  flaw  in  its  radiant  heart.  Some  are  twisted  out  of  all  hope 
from  birth,  like  one  of  Omar's  pots,  which  the  potter  moulded 
awry.  Some  seeds  of  innocent  lilies,  or  roses  of  loveliness,  or 
passion  flowers  divine,  are  scattered  upon  the  rocks,  or  blown 
by  harsh  winds  out  to  sea. 

Do  you  know  Thomas  Carlyle's  burning  words  concerning  these 
tragic  fates? 

Cholera  doctors,  hired  to  dive  into  black  dens  of  iafection 
and  despair,  they,  rushing  about  all  day,  from  lane  t»  lane, 

43 


NOT  GUILTY 

with  their  life  in  their  hand,  are  found  to  do  their  function; 
which  is  a  much  more  rugged  one  than  Howard's.  O,  what 
say  we,  Cholera  Doctors?  Ragged  losels,  gathered  by  beat  of 
drum  from  the  over-crowded  streets  of  cities,  and  drilled  a 
little,  and  dressed  in  red,  do  not  they  stand  fire  in  an  uncen- 
surable  manner ;  and  handsomely  give  their  life,  if  needful,  at 
the  rate  of  a  shilling  per  day  ?  Human  virtue,  if  we  went  down 
to  the  roots  of  it,  is  not  so  rare.  The  materials  of  human  vir- 
tue are  everywhere  abundant  as  the  light  of  the  sun :  raw  mate- 
rials— O  woe,  and  loss,  and  scandal  thrice  and  three-fold,  that 
they  so  seldom  are  elaborated,  and  built  into  a  result.  That 
they  lie  yet  unelaborated  and  stagnant  in  the  souls  of  wide- 
spread dreary  millions,  fermenting,  festering ;  and  issue  at  last 
as  energetic  vice  instead  of  strong  practical  virtue!  A  Mrs. 
Manning  "dying  game" — alas,  is  not  that  the  foiled  potentiality 
of  a  kind  of  heroine  too?  Not  a  heroic  Judith,  not  a  mother 
of  Gracchi  now,  but  a  hideous  murderess,  fit  to  be  mother  of 
hyenas !  To  such  extent  can  potentialities  be  foiled. 

Let  us  bear  in  mind,  then,  that  a  man's  powers,  like  the  powers 
of  a  state,  will  work  for  good  or  for  evil,  as  they  are  ill  or  well 
governed. 

And  the  government  of  human  powers  and  desires  depends 
partly  upon  heredity,  and  largely  upon  environment,  of  which  in 
its  due  place. 

How  Does  Heredity  Make  Genius? 

I  shall  not  weary  the  reader  witn  proofs  of  heredity.  It  would 
be  a  waste  of  words  to  quote  pages  of  Darwin,  Spencer,  Weiss- 
mann,  and  Galton  for  the  sake  of  proving  the  obvious.  Our  own 
observation  and  common  sense  will  convince  us  that  our  traits 
and  qualities  of  body  and  mind  are  inherited. 

We  know  that  rabbits  do  not  breed  kittens,  nor  eagles  geese,  nor 
apples  oranges,  nor  negroes  whites.  We  know  that  in  all  cases 
where  the  breed  is  pure  the  descent  is  pure ;  and  we  understand 
that  where  a  black  sheep  is  born  into  a  white  flock,  or  a  fair  child 
is  born  of  dark  fore-parents,  the  "sport,"  as  it  is  called,  is  due  to 
atavism,  or  breeding  back.  Somewhere,  near  or  far,  the  breed 
has  been  "crossed." 

But  there  is  one  question  that  has  caused  a  good  deal  of  doubt 
and  perplexity,  and,  as  the  answer  to  that  quesion  is  not  obvious, 
we  will  consider  it  here. 

44 


THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE— WITHIN  US 

A  "sport"  is  "an  individual  departure  from  a  type."  A  sport 
is  a  "freak  of  nature."  A  genius  is  a  "sport";  and  the  question 
we  are  to  answer  here  is : 

How  does  heredity  account  for  genius  ? 

To  make  the  matter  quite  clear,  and  to  meet  all  doubts,  we  will 
split  our  question  into  two : 

1.  How  is  it  that  genius  does  not  always  beget  genius? 

2.  How  is  it  mediocrity  does  sometimes  beget  genius  ? 

Take  the  first  question.  How  is  it  that  genius  does  not  always 
beget  genius?  Mr.  Galton  has  disposed  of  the  objection  that 
clever  men  do  not  have  clever  sons  by  showing  that  clever  men 
often  do  have  clever  sons. 

But  the  fact  remains  that  such  men  as  Shakespeare,  Plato, 
Caesar,  and  Socrates  never  have  children  as  great  as  themselves. 

And  it  has  been  claimed  that  this  fact  belies  heredity. 

But  to  those  who  know  even  a  very  little  about  heredity  it  is 
quite  obvious  that  we  ought  not  to  expect  the  son  of  a  very  great 
genius  to  be  equal  to  his  father. 

Such  a  recurrence  is  rendered  almost  impossible  by  the  law 
of  variation. 

A  great  man  is  a  lucky  product  of  heredity  and  environment. 
He  is  a  fortunate,  and  accidental,  blending  of  several  qualities 
which  make  greatness  possible. 

But  the  great  man's  son  is  not  born  of  the  same  parents  as  his 
father.  His  blood  is  only  half  of  it  drawn  from  the  families 
which  produced  his  father's  greatness;  the  other  half  is  from 
another  family,  which  may  contain  no  elements  of  greatness. 

Thus  so  far  from  its  being  strange  that  genius  does  not  beget 
genius,  we  see  that  it  would  be  strange  if  genius  did  beget  genius. 

The  children  of  Shakespeare  would  not  be  Shakespeareans : 
they  would  be  half  Shakespeare  and  half  Hathaway;  and  it  is 
quite  possible  that  their  intellectual  qualities  might  come  chiefly 
from  the  mother's  side. 

Now,  if  Ann  Hathaway's  family  were  not  intellectually  equal 
to  Shakespeare's  family,  how  could  we  expect  the  children  of 
those  two  to  be  equal  to  the  child  of  the  superior  breed  ? 

We  should  not  expect  a  mixture  of  wine  and  water  to  be  all 
wine ;  nor  the  foal  of  a  blood  horse  and  a  half-bred  mare  to  be  a 
thoroughbred  horse.  So  much  for  the  first  question.  Those  who 
ask  such  a  question  have  lost  sight  of  the  law  of  variation. 

Now  for  the  second  question.  How  is  it  that  mediocrity  breeds 
genius?  The  answer  to  that  is  that  mediocrity  does  not  breed 
genius. 

45 


NOT  GUILTY 

Let  us  take  a  case  that  is  often  cited:  the  case  of  the  great 
musician,  Handel. 

George  Frederick  Handel  was  a  musical  genius;  and  we  are 
told  that  heredity  does  not  account  for  his  genius,  as  no  other 
member  of  his  family  had  ever  displayed  any  special  musical  tal- 
ent. Whence,  then,  did  Handel  get  his  musical  genius  ? 

What  are  the  qualities  that  go  to  the  making  of  a  great  com- 
poser? First,  an  exquisite  ear;  that  implies  great  gifts  of  time 
and  tune.  Second,  a  great  imagination.  Third,  an  "infinite  ca- 
pacity for  taking  pains."  Fourth,  a  quick  and  sensitive  nervous 
system. 

Now,  a  man  might  possess  great  industry,  or  ambition,  and  sen- 
sitive nerves,  and  not  be  an  artist  of  any  kind. 

He  might  have  a  great  imagination,  and  lack  the  industry  or 
the  ambition  to  use  it  effectively. 

He  might  have  industry,  ambition,  sensitive  nerves,  and  great 
imagination,  and  yet  without  the  musical  ear  he  would  never  be 
a  musician. 

And  the  same  may  be  said  of  any  one  or  more  of  his  ancestors. 

Therefore,  there  may  have  been  amongst  Handel's  foreparents 
all  the  qualities  needed  for  the  making  of  a  great  musician  without 
those  qualities  ever  happening  to  be  united  in  one  person. 

Let  us  suppose  a  case.  A  man  of  energy  and  ambition,  but 
with  average  imagination,  and  an  average  ear,  marries  a  woman 
of  ordinary  mind.  Their  son  marries  a  woman  of  strong  imagina- 
tion. The  child  of  this  second  union  marries  a  woman  of  refined 
nature  and  considerable  imagination.  The  son  of  this  union  may 
be  ambitious,  imaginative,  and  energetic,  for  he  may  inherit  all 
those  qualities  from  his  foreparents. 

Then  the  only  trait  left  to  be  accounted  for  is  the  fine  musical 
ear. 

Now  that  gift  for  music  may  have  come  down  to  him  from  some 
distant  foreparent,  living  in  an  age  when  such  a  quality  had  no 
outlet.  Or  it  may  have  come  down  to  him  from  some  foreparent 
who  lacked  ambition  or  energy  to  use  it  in  a  striking  way. 

It  happens  very  often  that  a  son  inherits  his  finest  intellectual 
and  emotional  qualities  from  his  mother. 

And  we  know  that  a  talent  of  any  kind  is  more  likely  to  lie  dor- 
mant in  a  woman  than  in  a  man.  For  the  woman  may  spend  all 
her  time  and  attention  upon  her  home,  her  husband,  her  children. 

I  knew  a  case  in  which  two  sisters  possessed  considerable  ar- 
tistic talent.  Yet,  so  far  as  anyone  knew,  none  of  their  fore- 
parents  had  shown  artistic  ability.  But  one  of  the  sisters  told  me 

46 


THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE— WITHIN  US 

that  her  mother  had  a  remarkable  gift  for  drawing,  which  she  had 
never  used,  "except  to  amuse  her  children." 

Now,  when  we  come  to  look  into  the  case  of  Handel,  we  find 
that  his  father's  family  never  gave  any  sign  of  musical  talent.  But 
of  his  mother's  family,  and  of  the  families  of  his  grandmother  and 
great-grandmother  we  know  little. 

But  Handel's  father  was  ambitious  and  energetic,  and  his 
mother  is  described  as  follows : 

The  mother  was  thirty-three  years  old,  and,  we  are  told,  was 
"clear-minded,  of  strong  piety,  with  a  great  knowledge  of  the 
Bible  ...  a  capable  manager,  earnest,  and  of  pleasant 
manners." 

Is  there  any  proof  that  Handel's  mother  had  not  a  good  musi- 
cal ear?  None.  Is  there  any  proof  that  she  had  not,  lying  dor- 
mant, some  special  gift  for  music,  inherited  from  some  ancestor? 
None. 

In  that  day,  and  in  that  part  of  Germany,  music  was  set  little 
store  by,  and  musicians  were  regarded  much  as  actors  were  in 
England.  Therefore  any  great  musical  gift  which  happened  to 
be  inherited  by  a  woman  would  have  small  chance  of  being  de- 
veloped or  used.  And  it  is  quite  possible  that  Handel  may  have 
inherited  his  ear  from  his  mother's  family. 

Again,  the  musical  talent  may  have  been  a  quality  that  had 
been  improving  by  marriage  for  several  generations.  Or  it  may 
have  been  an  accident,  due  to  some  physical  process  about  which 
we  cannot  possibly  have  any  direct  knowledge. 

For  instance,  just  as  some  special  excellence  of  some  special 
organ  may  be  handed  down,  so  may  some  special  defect.  A  child 
may  inherit  the  defect,  or  the  excellence.  Or  he  may  inherit  a 
talent  from  both  parents,  and  so  may  excel  them  both. 

A  man  may  inherit  his  genius  piecemeal  from  a  hundred  ances- 
tors, some  of  them  dead  for  centuries,  or  he  may  owe  his  special 
brilliance  to  some  excitement,  or  even  to  some  derangement  of  the 
nervous  system.  In  fact,  to  what  Lombroso  calls  "degeneracy." 

He  may  be  like  a  river,  fed  by  several  ancestral  streams.  He 
may  be  the  descendant  of  some  "mute  inglorious  Milton."  But 
one  thing  he  is  not — he  is  not  a  "mystery."  There  is  nothing  in 
his  greatness  more  mysterious  than  the  accumulation  of  money 
in  a  bank,  or  the  agrandisement  of  a  river  by  its  tributary  streams, 
or  the  sudden  appearance  of  a  pattern  of  unusual  beauty  in  a 
kaleidoscope. 

47 


NOT  GUILTY 

There  is  nothing  in  genius  to  belie  heredity.  There  is  nothing 
in  genius  that  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  heredity — if  we  remem- 
ber the  laws  of  variation,  and  of  atavism,  or  breeding  back. 

"The  Born  Criminal" 

Speaking  strictly,  there  are  no  "born  criminals" ;  but  there  are 
some  unfortunate  creatures  born  with  a  nature  prone  to  crime, 
just  as  there  are  others  born  with  a  nature  prone  to  disease. 

These  "born  criminals,"  regarded  by  their  better-endowed  or 
luckier  brothers  and  sisters  as  "wicked,"  are  the  victims  of  "ata- 
vism" or  of  "degeneracy." 

They  are  as  much  to  be  pitied,  and  as  little  to  be  blamed,  as 
those  born  with  a  liability  to  insanity  or  consumption. 

Atavism,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  reversion  to  an  older  and  a 
lower  type,  a  "breeding  back,"  in  some  points,  to  the  savage  or 
the  brute. 

"Degeneracy"  is  the  inherited  result  of  vice,  insanity,  or  dis- 
ease in  the  parent  Lombroso  describes  degeneracy  as  "the  action 
of  heredity  in  the  children  of  the  inebriate,  the  syphilitic,  the 
insane,  the  consumptive,  etc.;  or  of  accidental  causes,  such  as 
lesions  of  the  head,  or  the  action  of  mercury,  which  profoundly 
change  the  tissues,  perpetuates  neuroses  or  other  diseases  in  the 
patient,  and,  which  is  worse,  aggravates  them  in  his  descendants." 

The  atavist  is  a  man  born  with  the  nature,  or  some  of  the 
traits  of  bestial  or  savage  ancestors.  He  is  bred  back  to  the  type 
that  was  before  morals.  He  is  born  with  strong  animal  traits, 
with  few  social  qualities ;  with  little  or  no  moral  brain.  He  is  a 
modern  child,  born  with  the  passions,  or  the  appetites,  or  the 
intelligence,  of  an  ape,  or  a  cave-man.  To  expect  him  to  rise  to 
the  moral  standard  of  to-day,  and  to  blame  him  if  he  fail,  is  as 
unreasonable  as  it  would  be  to  expect  the  same  conduct  from  a 
gorilla,  or  a  panther. 

If  the  atavist  is  "wicked,"  the  shark,  and  the  wolf,  and  the  adder 
are  "wicked." 

To  say  that  the  atavistic  man  has  "reason"  is  no  answer:  he 
has  not  the  kind  of  reason  that  makes  for  peace  and  order.  His 
misfortune  just  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  is  "bred  back"  to  the  kind 
of  reason  which,  amongst  the  cave-men,  perhaps,  made  a  man 
a  leader,  or  a  hero,  but  amongst  civilised  Western  people  makes 
him  a  "born  criminal." 

I  said  before,  that  to  blame  a  Spaniard  for  being  proud  is  to 
blame  him  for  being  born  of  Spanish  parents.  It  is  just  as  true 

48 


THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE— WITHIN  US 

to  say  that  to  blame  a  man  for  being  a  "born  criminal"  is  to  blame 
him  because  some  of  his  baser  ancestors  have  accidentally  passed 
on  to  him  the  traits  of  their  lower  natures. 

Indeed,  it  is  plainly  absurd  to  blame  a  man  for  being  "born" 
anything,  since  he  had  no  hand  nor  part  in  his  birth. 

All  we  can  do  with  regard  to  the  "born  criminal"  is  to  pity  him 
for  his  unhappy  inheritance,  and  try  to  make  the  best  of  him.  So 
far  we  have  never  tried  to  make  the  best  of  him ;  but  have  usually 
made  almost  the  worst  of  him,  by  meeting  his  hate  with  our  hate, 
his  ignorance  with  our  ignorance,  his  ferocity  with  our  ferocity. 
Nature,  or  God,  having  cursed  the  poor  wretch  with  a  heritage 
of  shame,  we  have  come  forward,  in  the  name  of  humanity  and 
justice,  to  punish  and  execrate  him  for  his  fatal  mischoice  of  an- 
cestors. It  is  as  though  we  should  flog  a  gorilla  or  a  hyaena  for 
having  wickedly  refused  to  be  born  a  Canon  of  St.  Paul's,  or  a 
Primitive  Methodist  Sunday  school  teacher. 

But  some  will  suppose  that  the  "born  criminal"  might  be  a 
sober,  law-abiding,  and  God-fearing  man,  "if  he  would  try" ;  and 
they  do  not  understand  that  the  man  with  the  atavistic  brain 
cannot  try. 

He  has  not  got  the  kind  of  brain  that  can  try  to  be  what  we 
think  he  ought  to  be.  We  do  not  expect  the  bear  to  "try"  to  be 
polite,  nor  the  hog  to  "try"  to  be  cleanly.  We  know  they  cannot 
try  to  be  either  of  those  things.  Neither  can  the  atavistic  man  try 
to  be  something  for  which  his  nature  was  not  made. 

What  is  sauce  for  the  atavist  is  sauce  for  the  degenerate.  He 
also  is  the  victim  of  cruel  fate.  He  also  inherits  misfortune,  or 
shame,  or  disaster  from  his  fathers.  His  nature  is  not  a  casting 
back  to  an  ancient  type:  it  is  a  nature  poisoned,  maimed,  per- 
verted, or  spoiled  through  the  vices  or  the  diseases  of  those  who 
brought  him  into  the  world. 

The  degenerate  may  inherit  from  a  diseased  or  drunken  parent 
an  imperfect  mind  or  an  imperfect  body.  He  may  be  born  with 
a  weak  moral  sense,  or  with  weak  lungs,  or  with  an  ill-balanced 
brain. 

Proneness  to  crime  or  proneness  to  disease  may  be  born  in  him 
through  no  fault  of  his  own.  The  cause  is  the  same  in  both  cases : 
the  vice  or  diseaLe  of  a  parent. 

Now  it  is  certain  that  we  do  not  blame,  but  pity,  and  that  we 
do  not  punish  but  help  the  victim  whose  degeneracy  takes  the 
form  of  disease.  But  we  do  blame  and  we  do  punish  the  victim 
whose  degeneracy  takes  the  form  of  immorality  or  crime. 

In  neither  case  is  the  degeneracy  the  fault  of  the  degenerate: 

49 


NOT  GUILTY 

in  both  cases  it  is  handed  down  to  him  by  his  parent  or  parents. 
Yet  in  the  one  case  he  gets  our  sympathy,  and  in  the  other  case 
our  censure. 

There  is  neither  justice  nor  reason  in  such  treatment  of  those 
who  have  the  misfortune  to  be  born — in  the  true  sense  of  the 
words — of  "unsound  mind." 

Those  who  have  made  a  scientific  study  of  crime  tell  us  that 
"psychic  atavism  is  the  dominant  characteristic  of  the  born  crimi- 
nal." 

What  is  "psychic  atavism"  ?  It  is  a  breeding  back,  or  "casting 
back"  to  a  lower  type  of  mind.  This  atavistic  mind  is  inherited 
by  the  "born  criminal"  just  as  certain  "muscles  common  to  apes" 
are  inherited  by  some  other  men. 

And  we  are  told  that  this  inherited  atavistic  mind  is  "the  domi- 
nant characteristic  of  the  criminal  born."  In  other  words,  those 
men  whom  we  have  always  blamed  and  punished  as  exceptionally 
"wicked,"  have  inherited  an  atavistic,  or  criminal,  mind  from 
ancestors  who  died  millions  of  years  ago.  The  most  noticeable 
and  striking  fact  about  the  born  criminal  is  his  unfortunate  inher- 
itance of  that  atavistic  mind. 

And  in  the  plenitude  of  our  wisdom  and  the  glow  of  our  right- 
eous wrath,  we  hang  a  man,  or  flog  him,  or  brand  him,  or  loathe 
him,  because  a  cruel  fate  has  visited  upon  him  an  affliction  more 
pitiable  than  blindness,  or  lameness,  or  paralysis,  or  consumption. 

In  cases  of  psychic  atavism  the  actual  form  of  the  brain,  or  the 
skull,  is  more  or  less  like  that  of  the  older  and  lower  type  to 
which  the  luckless  atavist  has  been  cast  back.  The  skull  of  the 
"born  criminal"  is  the  skull  of  the  ape-man,  or  the  cave-man.  It 
has  a  low  and  retreating  forehead,  a  heavy  and  square  jaw,  and 
is  large  behind,  where  the  baser  animal  parts  of  the  brain  are 
placed. 

Now,  to  expect  the  same  morals  and  the  same  intelligence  from 
a  man  cursed  with  the  skull  of  a  gorilla,  or  the  brain  of  a  wild 
hog,  as  from  the  man  blest  with  the  skull  and  brain  of  a  Socrates 
or  a  Shakespeare,  is  like  expecting  figs  to  grow  upon  thistles,  or 
fish  to  breathe  without  gills. 

And  to  blame  a  man  for  the  shape  of  his  skull,  or  the  balance 
of  his  brain,  is  as  foolish  as  to  blame  him  because  he  has  no  eye 
for  colour  or  no  ear  for  music,  or  because  his  "having  in  beard  is 
as  a  younger  brother's  revenue." 

Speaking  on  this  subject  in  his  excellent  book,  "The  Diseases 
of  Society,"  Dr.  Lydston,  Professor  of  Criminal  Anthropology, 
who  is  a  well-known  authority  in  America,  says : 

50 


THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE— WITHIN  US 

Atavism,  or  reversion  of  type,  is  a  most  important  phase  of 
the  relation  of  evolutionary  law  to  criminal  and  vice  tendencies. 
.  .  .  Reversion  of  type  may  be  psychic  (mental)  or  physi- 
cal or  both. 

Whether  associated  with  obvious  physical  reversions  0r  not, 
psychic  atavism  is  the  dominant  characteristic  of  the  criminal. 
It  is  certainly  the  principal  phenomenon  involved  in  the  study 
of  the  crime  question,  because  it  constitutes  the  dynamics  of 
crime.  The  outcropping  of  ancestral  types  of  mentality  is  ob- 
served to  underlie  many  of  the  manifestations  of  vice  and 
crime.  These  ancestral  types  or  traits  may  revert  farther  back 
even  than  the  savage  progenitors  of  civilised  man,  and  approxi- 
mate those  of  the  lower  animals  who,  in  turn,  stand  behind  the 
savage  in  the  line  of  descent.  .  .  . 

Lombroso  assigns  to  atavism  a  position  of  pre-eminence  in 
the  etiology  of  crime.  In  effect  he  thinks  that  crime  is  a  return 
to  primitive  and  barbarous  ancestral  conditions,  the  criminal 
being  practically  a  savage,  born  later  than  his  day.  Obviously 
this  view  fits  very  accurately  the  so-called  born  criminal,  com- 
prising about  one-tenth  of  the  entire  criminal  population. 

But  what  of  the  other  victims  of  heredity :  the  criminal,  or  im- 
moral "degenerate"  ?  Let  us  take  a  few  facts,  and  see  what  they 
will  teach  us. 

Dr.  Lydston  testifies  as  follows : 

Rev.  O.  McCulloch  has  traced  the  life  histories  of  seventeen 
hundred  and  fifty  degenerate  criminal  and  pauper  descendants 
of  one  "Ben  Ishmael,"  who  lived  in  Kentucky  in  1790. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Stocker,  of  Berlin,  traced  eight  hundred  and 
thirty-four  descendants  of  two  sisters,  who  lived  in  1825. 
Among  them  were  seventy-six  who  had  served  one  hundred 
and  sixteen  years  in  prison,  one  hundred  and  sixty- four  pros- 
titutes, one  hundred  and  six  illegitimate  children,  seventeen 
pimps,  one  hundred  and  forty-two  beggars,  and  sixty-four 
paupers. 

It  has  been  estimated  by  Sichart,  Director  of  Prisons  in 
Wurtemburg,  that  over  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  German 
prison  population  comes  from  a  degenerate  ancestry.  Vergilis 
claims  thirty-two  per  cent,  for  Italian  criminals. 

Now,  bearing  in  mind  that  the  unfortunate  children  of  drunken, 
diseased,  criminal,  vicious,  and  insane  parents  may,  and  in  very 

51 


xV^U' 

NOT  GUILTY 

many  cases  will,  either  become  criminal  or  immoral,  or,  becoming 
imbecile  or  diseased,  will  breed  other  degenerate  children  who 
will  become  criminal  or  immoral,  let  us  consider  the  following 
plain  facts  taken  from  a  London  daily  paper  of  the  present  year 
(1905^ 

It  is  estimated  that  there  are  50,000  epileptic  children  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  that  one  child  in  every  100  of  the  popu- 
lation is  feeble-minded. 

In  the  last  few  years  special  schools  have  been  opened  for 
these  children,  and  they  are  trained  until  they  are  sixteen  years 
of  age.  At  that  age  they  are  turned  out  into  the  world.  A  few 
are  able  to  look  after  themselves.  The  majority  drift  into  im- 
becility and  vice,  and  flood  the  workhouses  and  prisons. 

At  a  meeting  in  the  Guildhall,  London,  called  to  discuss  the 
means  of  dealing  with  imbeciles  and  epileptics,  a  speech  was  made 
by  Dr.  Potts,  of  Birmingham,  of  which  the  following  is  a  con- 
densed report,  cut  by  me  from  the  Daily  Express: 

Terrible  facts  with  regard  to  feeble-minded  and  defective 
women  were  given  by  Dr.  Potts.  He  paid  a  visit  to  a  girls' 
night  shelter,  and  investigated  the  first  twelve  cases  he  found 
there.  Here  is  their  record : 

1.  Consumptive,  both  parents  died  of  the  disease. 

2.  Neurotic  drunkard,  with  a  family  who  had  suffered  from 
St.  Vitus'  dance. 

3.  Normal. 

4.  Deaf  and  mentally  defective. 

5.  Neurotic  and  mentally  defective. 

6.  No  congenital  defect,  but  health  ruined  by  drink. 
7  and  8.     Feeble  character. 

9.  Suffering  from  persistent  bad  memory. 

10.  Twice  imprisoned  for  theft ;  daughter  of  drunken  loafer. 

11.  Normal. 

12.  Mentally  defective  and  suffering  from  heart  disease. 
Thus,  out  of  twelve  only  two  were  normal  individuals.    Yet 

the  ten  were  free  to  go  as  they  liked,  and  to  bring  up  defective 
children. 

"It  is  well  known,"  said  Dr.  Potts,  "that  a  large  number  of 
the  inmates  of  penitentiaries  are  feeble-minded  women." 

We  see,  then,  that  a  great  many  poor  imbeciles  are  regularly 

52 


THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE— WITHIN  US 

sent  to  prison  as  criminals.  On  that  point  allow  me  to  put  in 
the  evidence  of  Sir  Robert  Anderson,  late  of  Scotland  Yard. 
Speaking  of  the  feeble-minded,  Sir  Robert  said  (I  quote  again 
from  the  London  Press)  : 

My  deliberate  conviction  is  that  our  present  prison  methods 
and  prison  discipline  are  absolutely  brutal  to  these  poor  per- 
sons. People  say  the  law  of  Moses  is  brutal,  but  it  is  not  so 
brutal  as  the  present  criminal  system  of  England. 

No  one  who  has  not  been  behind  the  scenes  can  understand 
in  any  measure  the  misery  and  cruelty  of  it.  It  is  "seven  days' 
hard  labour,"  "a  month's  hard  labour,"  time  after  time  for 
these  poor  creatures,  who  ought  to  be  dealt  with  like  children. 
In  prison  they  spend  their  miserable  lives.  Out  of  gaol  they 
add  to  the  number  of  their  own  species,  and  commit  offences 
which  send  them  back  once  more. 

Our  magistrates  simply  send  them  for  another  month  or  six 
months.  But  it  is  not  the  magistrates'  fault.  It  is  the  fault 
of  the  law.  And  this  goes  on  in  what  promises  to  be  the  most 
intellectually  conceited  age  since  God  made  man  upon  earth. 
Surely  we  might  have  some  pity  for  these  poor  creatures !  If 
we  have  no  pity  for  them  we  should  have  regard  for  the  public. 

That  is  the  testimony  of  the  late  head  of  the  Criminal  Investi- 
gation Department:  an  Assistant  Commissioner  of  Police,  and 
Barrister  at  Law. 

Let  us  now  return  to  Dr.  Potts,  of  Birmingham,  for  a  moment. 
In  the  speech  above  quoted  Dr.  Potts  gave  the  causes  of  mental 
defects — which  are  the  causes  that  lead  these  poor  creatures  to 
immorality  and  to  crime,  as  follows: 

1.  Defective  nutrition  in  early  years  of  life. 

2.  Hereditary  tendency  to  consumption. 

3.  Descent  from  insane  or  criminal  stock. 

4.  Chronic  alcoholism  of  one  or  both  parents. 

We  have  here,  added  by  Dr.  Potts,  another  cause  of  degen- 
eracy: that  is,  defective  nutrition  in  early  life.  In  plain  words, 
improper  feeding,  or  semi-starvation. 

Later,  when  we  come  to  deal  with  environment,  I  shall  show 
that  there  are  many  other  causes  of  degeneration  and  of  crime. 
But  here  I  only  point  out  that  atavism  and  degeneration  account 
for  from  thirty  to  forty  per  cent,  of  the  criminals  of  the  present 

53 


NOT  GUILTY 

day.  That  atavism  and  degeneration  are  forced  upon  the  unborn 
child  by  heredity ;  that  therefore  these  forty  per  cent,  of  our  crim- 
inals are  unfortunate  victims  of  fate,  and  are  no  more  blame- 
worthy nor  wicked  than  the  victims  of  a  railway  accident,  or  an 
earthquake,  or  an  epidemic  of  cholera  or  smallpox. 

They  should,  as  I  claimed  before,  be  pitied,  and  not  blamed; 
they  should  be  helped,  not  punished. 

Unhappy,  unblest  atavistic  man,  that  in  lieu  of  love  has  only 
lust,  in  lieu  of  wisdom  only  cunning,  in  lieu  of  power  violence; 
and  with  a  whole  world  to  walk  in,  as  in  a  garden  fair,  lies  wal- 
lowing hideously  in  the  foul  dungeon  of  his  own  unlightened  soul. 

Unhappy  criminal  born,  most  pitiful  dreadful  of  developed 
creatures;  lonelier  and  more  accursed  than  banded  wolf  or  soli- 
tary tiger :  a  waif,  a  spoil,  a  pariah  "born  out  of  his  due  time" : 

A  scribe's  work  writ  awry  and  blurred, 
Spoiled  music,  with  no  perfect  word, 

a  wretched,  horrible  Ishmael  with  his  hand  against  the  hand  of 
every  man,  and  every  man's  hand  implacably  against  his. 

On  him,  it  would  appear,  has  fallen  the  doom  of  the  prophet, 
and  instead  of  sweet  spices  there  is  rottenness,  instead  of  a  girdle 
a  rope :  branding  instead  of  beauty. 

In  the  barren  garden  of  his  mind  no  flowers  will  blow,  his  trees 
will  bear  no  fruit.  All  human  pleasure  is  to  him  a  Circe  cup; 
he  finds  no  pathos  in  the  children's  laughter,  no  beauty  in  the 
dawn-shine ;  no  glory  in  the  constellations. 

What  are  we  to  do  for  this  wretched  desperate  brother  who 
will  not  love  us  though  we  whip  him  with  whips  of  wire,  who 
will  not  make  friends  of  us  though  we  spurn  and  spit  upon  him ; 
who,  though  we  preach  to  him,  cannot  understand ;  who,  though 
we  teach  him,  cannot  learn;  who,  though  we  hang  him  high  as 
Haman,  will  "die  game,"  cursing  us  with  his  strangled  breath, 
mocking  us  with  his  blinded  eyes ;  and  in  spite  of  all  our  intellect 
and  righteousness  going  back  from  us  unbettered  and  untamed 
into  the  abyss  of  eternity  and  the  laboratory  of  evolution,  whence 
he  and  we  were  drawn :  going  back  from  us  a  savage  still,  and  in 
his  angry  heart  and  baffled  mind  holding  our  half-fledged  knowl- 
edge and  green  morality  in  derision. 

Well.  He  is  dead ;  his  stiff  neck  broken,  and  his  body  wrapped 
in  a  winding  sheet  of  lime. 

And  we?  We  remain  the  superior  persons  we  are.  We  are 
civilised,  and  holy.  We  punish  weakness  with  blows,  and  misfor- 

54 


THE  ANCESTRAL  STRUGGLE— WITHIN  US 

tune  with  chains.  We  teach  sweet  reasonableness  with  the  cat- 
o'-nine-tails — steeped  in  brine.  We  exemplify  gentleness  and 
mercy  with  the  gibbet  and  the  axe.  We  brand  the  blind,  and  tor- 
ture the  imbecile,  and  execrate  the  miserable,  and  damn  the  dis- 
eased, and  revile  the  fallen;  we  set  our  righteous  heel  upon  the 
creeping  thing,  and  thank  our  anomalous  and  hypothetical  God 
of  Love  and  Justice  that  we  are  not  as  those  others — our  atavis- 
tic brother  and  his  degenerate  children. 

And  our  atavistic  brother,  the  criminal  born!  He  does  not 
understand  us,  he  does  not  admire  us,  he  cannot  love  us.  We  fail, 
in  some  inexplicable  way,  to  charm  the  deaf  adder,  charm  we 
never  so  wisely. 

But  some  day,  perhaps,  when  the  superior  person  has  achieved 
humility,  even  the  outlawed  Bottom  Dog  may  come  by  some 
crumbs  of  sympathy,  some  drops  of  the  milk  of  human  kindness, 
and — then? 


CHAPTER     SIX 
ENVIRONMENT 


WHAT  is  environment? 
When  we  speak  of  a  man's  environment  we  mean 
his  surroundings,  his  experiences;  all  that  he  sees, 
hears,  feels,  and  learns,  from  the  instant  that  the  lamp 
of  life  is  kindled  to  the  instant  when  the  light  goes  out. 

By  environment  we  mean  everything  that  develops  or  modifies 
the  child  or  the  man  for  good  or  for  ill. 

We  mean  his  mother's  milk ;  the  home,  and  the  state  of  life  into 
which  he  was  born.  We  mean  the  nurse  who  suckles  him,  the 
children  he  plays  with,  the  school  he  learns  in,  the  air  he  breathes, 
the  water  he  drinks,  the  food  he  eats.  We  mean  the  games  he 
plays,  the  work  he  does,  the  sights  he  sees,  the  sounds  he  hears. 
We  mean  the  girls  he  loves,  the  woman  he  marries,  the  children  he 
rears,  the  wages  he  earns.  We  mean  the  sickness  that  tries  him, 
the  griefs  that  sear  him,  the  friends  who  aid  and  the  enemies  who 
wound  him.  We  mean  all  his  hopes  and  fears,  his  victories  and 
defeats ;  his  faiths  and  his  disillusionments.  We  mean  all  the 
harm  he  does,  and  all  the  help  he  gives ;  all  the  ideals  that  beckon 
him,  all  the  temptations  that  lure  him ;  all  his  weepings  and  laugh- 
ter, his  kissings  and  cursings,  his  lucky  hits  and  unlucky  blunders : 
everything  he  does  and  suffers  under  the  sun. 

I  go  into  all  this  detail  because  we  must  remember  that  every- 
thing that  happens  to  a  man,  everything  that  influences  him,  is  a 
part  of  his  environment. 

It  is  a  common  mistake  to  think  of  environment  in  a  narrow 
sense,  as  though  environment  implied  no  more  than  poverty  or 
riches.  Everything  outside  our  skin  belongs  to  our  environment. 

Let  us  think  of  it  again.  Education  is  environment ;  religion  is 
environment ;  business  and  politics  are  environment ;  all  the  ideals, 
conventions,  and  prejudices  of  race  and  class  are  environment; 
literature,  science,  and  the  Press  are  environment ;  music,  history, 
and  sport  are  environment ;  beauty  and  ugliness  are  environment ; 
example  and  precept  are  environment;  war  and  travel  and  com- 

56 


ENVIEONMENT 

merce  are  environment ;  sunshine  and  ozone,  honour  and  dishon- 
our, failure  and  success,  are  environment ;  love  is  environment. 

I  stress  and  multiply  examples  because  the  power  of  environ- 
ment is  so  tremendous  that  we  can  hardly  over-rate  its  impor- 
tance. 

A  child  is  not  born  with  a  conscience ;  but  with  the  rudiments  of 
a  conscience :  the  materials  from  which  a  conscience  may  or  may 
not  be  developed — by  environment. 

A  child  is  not  born  with  capacities,  but  only  with  potentialities, 
or  possibilities,  for  good  or  evil,  which  may  or  may  not  be  devel- 
oped— by  environment. 

A  child  is  born  absolutely  without  knowledge.  Every  atom  of 
knowledge  he  gets  must  be  got  from  his  environment. 

Every  faculty  of  body  or  of  mind  grows  stronger  with  use 
and  weaker  with  disuse.  This  is  as  true  of  the  reason  and  the 
will  as  of  the  muscles. 

The  sailor  has  better  sight  than  the  townsman,  because  his  eyes 
get  better  exercise.  The  blind  have  sharper  ears  than  ours,  be- 
cause they  depend  more  on  their  hearing. 

Exercise  of  the  mind  "alters  the  arrangement  of  the  grey  mat- 
ter of  the  brain,"  and  so  alters  the  morals,  the  memory,  and  the 
reasoning  powers. 

Just  as  dumb-bells,  rowing,  or  delving  develop  the  muscles, 
thought,  study,  and  conversation  develop  the  brain. 

And  everything  that  changes,  or  develops,  muscle  or  brain  is  a 
part  of  our  environment. 

There  must  be  bounds  to  the  powers  of  environment,  but  no 
man  has  yet  discovered  the  limits,  and  few  have  dared  to  place 
them  wide  enough. 

But  the  scope  of  environment  is  undoubtedly  so  great,  as  I  shall 
try  to  prove,  that,  be  the  heredity  what  it  may,  environment  has 
power  to  save  or  damn. 

Let  us  think  what  it  means  to  be  born  quite  without  knowledge. 
Let  us  think  what  it  means  to  owe  all  that  we  learn  to  environ- 
ment. 

So  it  is.  Were  it  not  for  the  action  of  environment,  for  the 
help  of  other  men  and  women,  we  should  live  and  die  as  animals ; 
without  morality,  without  decency,  without  the  use  of  tools,  or 
arms,  or  arts,  or  letters.  We. should  be  savages,  or  superior  kinds 
of  apes.  That  we  are  civilised  and  cultured  men  and  women  we 
owe  to  the  fellow-creatures  who  gave  into  our  infant  hands  the 
key  to  the  stored-up  knowledge  and  experience  of  the  race. 

The  main  difference  between  the  Europe  of  to-day  and  the 

57 


NOT  GUILTY 

Europe  of  the  old  Stone  Age  is  one  of  knowledge :  that  is,  of  en- 
vironment 

Suppose  that  a  child  of  Twentieth-Century  parents  could  be 
born  into  the  environment  of  an  earlier  century.  Would  he  grow 
up  with  the  ideas  of  to-day,  or  with  the  ideas  of  those  who  taught 
and  trained  him  ?  Most  certainly  he  would  fall  into  step  with  his 
environment :  he  would  think  with  those  with  whom  he  lived,  and 
from  whom  he  learnt. 

Born  into  ancient  Athens,  he  would  look  upon  slavery  as  a  quite 
natural  and  proper  thing.  Born  into  ancient  Scandinavia,  he 
would  grow  up  a  Viking,  would  worship  Thor  and  Odin,  and 
would  adopt  piracy  as  the  only  profession  for  a  man  ot  honour. 
Born  into  the  environment  of  the  Spanish  prime,  he  would  think 
it  a  righteous  act  to  roast  heretics  or  to  break  Lutherans  on  the 
wheel.  Born  into  the  fanatical  environment  of  Sixteenth-Century 
France,  he  would  have  no  scruples  against  assisting  in  the  holv 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's. 

Born  a  Turk,  he  would  believe  the  Koran,  and  accept  polygamy 
and  slavery.  Born  a  Red  Indian,  he  would  scalp  his  slain  or 
wounded  enemies,  and  torture  his  prisoners.  Born  amongst  can- 
nibals, he  would  devour  his  aged  relatives,  and  his  faded  wives, 
and  most  of  the  foes  made  captive  to  his  bow  and  spear. 

Suppose  a  child  of  modern  English  family  could  be  born  into 
the  environment  of  Fourteenth-Century  England ! 

He  would  surely  believe  in  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  in  a 
personal  devil,  and  in  a  hell  of  everlasting  fire. 

He  would  believe  that  the  sun  goes  round  the  world,  and  that 
any  person  who  thought  otherwise  was  a  child  of  the  devil,  and 
ought  to  be  broiled  piously  and  slowly  at  a  fire  of  green  faggots. 

He  would  accept  slave-dealing,  witch-burning,  the  Star  Cham- 
ber, the  whipping-post,  the  pillory,  and  the  forcing  of  evidence  by 
torture,  as  comfortably  as  we  now  accept  the  cat-o'-nine-tails,  the 
silent  system,  and  the  gallows. 

He  would  look  upon  education,  sanitation,  and  science  as  black 
magic  and  defiance  of  God. 

He  would  never  have  learnt  from  Copernicus,  Newton,  Harvey, 
Bacon,  Spencer,  Darwin,  Edison,  or  Pasteur. 

He  would  be  ignorant  of  Shakespeare,  Cromwell,  the  French 
Revolution,  the  Emancipation  of  Slaves,  the  Factory  Acts,  and 
the  Household  Franchise. 

He  would  never  have  heard  of  electricity,  steam,  cheap  books, 
the  free  Press,  the  School  Board,  the  Fabian  Society. 

He  would  never  have  heard  of  the  Australian  Colomies,  of  the 

58 


ENVIRONMENT 

Indian  Empire,  of  the  United  States  of  America,  nor  of  Buona- 
parte, George  Washington,  Nelson,  Queen  Elizabeth,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  nor  Florence  Nightingale. 

Not  one  of  these  great  men,  not  one  of  these  great  things  would 
form  a  part  of  his  environment. 

Nor  may  we  lightly  claim  that  he,  himself,  would  be  of  a  more 
highly  developed  type,  that  his  propensities  would  be  more  hu- 
mane, his  nature  more  refined. 

For  we  must  not  overlook  such  examples  as  Alfred  the  Great, 
Joan  of  Arc,  Chaucer,  Mallory,  and  Sir  Thomas  More. 

We  must  not  forget  that  the  refined  John  Wesley  believed  in 
witch-burning,  that  the  refined  Jeremy  Taylor  thought  all  the 
millions  born  in  heathen  darkness  would  be  doomed  to  eternal 
torment. 

Nor  must  we  forget  that  many  educated,  cultured,  and  well- 
meaning  Europeans  and  Americans  to-day  believe  that  unbaptised 
babies,  and  free-thinkers,  and  unrepentant  Christians  will  lie 
shrieking  forever  in  a  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone. 

We  must  not  forget  that  it  is  now,  in  the  Twentieth  Century, 
that  I,  an  Englishman,  am  writing  this  book  to  plead  that  men 
and  women,  our  brothers  and  sisters,  should  not  be  hated,  de- 
graded, whipped,  imprisoned,  hanged,  and  everlastingly  damned 
for  being  more  ignorant  and  less  fortunate  than  others,  their 
fellows. 

Taken  straight  from  the  cradle  and  brought  up  by  brutes,  a 
child  would  be  scarcely  human.  Taken  straight  from  the  cradle 
and  brought  up  amongst  savages,  the  child  must  be  a  savage. 
Taken  straight  from  the  cradle  and  brought  up  amongst  thieves, 
the  child  must  be  a  thief. 

Every  child  is  born  destitute  of  knowledge,  and  every  child  is 
born  with  propensities  that  may  make  for  evil  or  for  good. 

And  the  men  and  women  amongst  whom  the  child  is  born  and 
reared  are  the  sole  source  from  which  he  can  get  knowl- 
edge 

And  the  men  and  women  amongst  whom  the  child  is  born  and 
reared  are  the  sole  means  by  which  his  propensities  may  be  re- 
strained from  evil  and  developed  for  good. 

The  child's  character,  then,  his  development  for  good  or  evil, 
depends  upon  his  treatment  by  his  fellow-creatures. 

His  propensities  depend  upon  his  ancestors. 

That  is  to  say,  a  child  must  inevitably  grow  up  and  become 
that  which  his  ancestors  and  his  fellow-creatures  make  him. 

That  is  to  say,  that  a  man  "is  a  creature  of  heredity  and  en- 

59 


NOT  GUILTY 

vironment"    He  is  what  he  is  made  by  a  certain  kind  of  environ- 
ment acting  upon  a  certain  kind  of  heredity. 

He  does  not  choose  his  ancestors:  he  does  not  choose  his  en- 
vironment. How,  then,  can  he  be  blamed  if  his  ancestors  give  to 
him  a  bad  heredity,  or  if  his  fellow-creatures  give  to  him  a  bad 
environment  ? 

Should  we  blame  a  bramble  for  yielding  no  strawberries,  or  a 
privet  bush  for  bearing  no  chrysanthemums? 

Should  we  blame  a  rose  tree  for  running  wild  in  a  jungle,  or  for 
languishing  in  the  shadow  of  great  elms  ? 

There  are  no  figs  on  thistles,  because  the  heredity  of  the  thistle 
does  not  breed  figs. 

And  the  lily  pines,  and  bears  leaves  only,  in  darkness  and  a  hos- 
tile soil,  because  the  conditions  are  against  it. 

The  breed  of  the  rose  or  the  fig  is  its  heredity :  the  soil  and  the 
sunshine,  or  the  darkness  and  the  cold,  and  the  gardener's  care 
or  neglect,  are  its  environment. 

Let  any  one  who  under-rates  the  power  of  environment  exer- 
cise his  imagination  for  a  minute. 

Suppose  he  had  never  learnt  to  read!  Suppose  he  had  never 
learnt  to  talk !  Suppose  he  had  never  learnt  to  speak  the  truth, 
to  control  his  temper,  to  keep  his  word,  to  be  courteous  to  women, 
to  value  life ! 

Now,  he  had  nothing  of  this  when  he  was  born.  He  brought 
no  knowledge  of  any  kind  into  the  world  with  him.  He  had  to 
be  taught  to  read,  to  speak,  to  be  honest,  to  be  courteous ;  and  the 
teaching  was  part  of  his  environment. 

And  suppose  none  had  cared  to  teach  him  good.  Suppose,  in- 
stead, he  had  been  taught  to  lie  and  to  steal,  to  hate  and  to  fight, 
to  gamble  and  to  swear!  What  manner  of  man  would  he  have 
been  ? 

He  would  have  been  that  which  his  environment  had  made  him. 
And  would  he  have  been  to  blame  ?  Would  it  have  been  his  fault 
that  he  was  born  amongst  thieves  ?  Would  it  have  been  his  fault 
that  he  had  never  heard  good  counsel,  but  had  been  drilled  and 
trained  to  evil? 

But  the  objector  may  say  that  as  he  got  older  and  knew  better 
he  could  mend  his  ways. 

And  it  is  really  necessary,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  to  point  out 
that  he  never  could  "know  better,"  unless  some  person  taught 
him  better.  And  the  teaching  him  to  "know  better"  would  be  a 
change  in  his  environment :  it  would  be  a  part  of  his  environment, 
for  which  he  himself  would  deserve  no  credit. 

60 


ENVIRONMENT 

The  point  is  that,  since  he  is  bora  destitute  of  knowledge,  he 
never  could  know  good  unless  taught  good  by  some  other  person. 
And  that  this  other  person  would  be  outside  himself,  and  part  of 
his  environment. 

Now,  how  could  the  ignorant  child  be  blamed  if  some  power 
outside  himself  teaches  him  evil,  or  how  can  he  be  praised  if  some 
power  outside  himself  teaches  him  good? 

But  he  would  have  a  conscience?  He  would  be  born  with  the 
rudiments  of  a  conscience.  But  what  his  conscience  should  be- 
come, what  things  it  would  hold  as  wrong,  would  depend  wholly 
upon  the  teaching  he  got  from  those  who  formed  part  of  his  en- 
vironment. 

In  a  cannibal  environment  he  would  have  a  cannibal  conscience ; 
in  a  Catholic  environment  a  Catholic  conscience;  in  a  piratical 
environment  a  pirate's  conscience.  But  of  that  more  in  its  due 
place.  Let  us  now  examine  some  of  the  effects  of  environment. 

Morals  and  Disease 

The  brain  is  the  mind.  When  the  brain  is  diseased  the  mind  is 
diseased.  When  the  brain  is  sick  the  mind  is  sick. 

But  the  brain  is  part  of  the  body.  We  see,  hear,  smell,  feel, 
and  taste  with  the  brain.  The  nerves  of  the  toes  and  fingers  are 
connected  with  the  brain ;  they  are  like  twigs  on  a  tree,  of  which 
the  brain  is  the  root.  The  same  blood  which  circulates  through 
the  heart  and  limbs  circulates  through  the  brain. 

It  is  only  a  figure  of  speech  to  speak  of  the  mind  and  the  body 
as  distinct  from  each  other.  The  mind  and  the  body  are  one. 

A  wound  in  any  part  of  the  body — a  burn,  a  stab,  a  lash — is 
felt  in  the  brain.  When  the  body  suffers  from  illness  or  fatigue, 
the  brain  suffers  also.  When  a  limb  is  paralysed,  the  real  paraly- 
sis is  in  a  part  of  the  brain.  When  the  brain  is  paralysed  the  man 
can  neither  move  nor  speak,  nor  think  nor  feel.  When  the  heart 
is  weak  the  brain  does  not  get  enough  blood,  and  the  mind  is  lan- 
guid, or  syncope  sets  in  and  the  man  dies. 

We  do  not  need  a  prophet  nor  a  doctor  to  tell  us  that  sickness 
affects  the  mind.  We  know  that  dyspepsia,  gout,  or  sluggish  liver 
makes  us  peevish,  stupid,  jealous,  suspicious,  and  despondent. 

We  know  that  illness  or  weariness  turns  a  sweet  temper  sour, 
makes  a  patient  man  impatient,  a  grateful  man  ungrateful.  We 
know  how  trying  are  the  caprices  and  whims  of  an  invalid,  and 
we  commonly  say  of  such,  "he  cannot  help  it:  he  is  not  himself 
to-day." 

61 


NOT  GUILTY 

But  we  do  not  know,  as  doctors  know,  how  searching  and  how 
terrible  are  the  effects  of  some  diseases  on  the  brain.  Dr.  Lyd- 
ston,  in  The  Diseases  of  Society,  says : 

The  old  adage,  metis  sana  in  corpore  sano,  is  too  often  for- 
gotten. Especially  is  it  ignored  by  the  legislator  and  penolo- 
gist.  A  normal  psychic  balance  and  a  brain  fed  with  blood  that 
is  insufficient  in  quantity  or  vicious  in  quality  are  physiologic 
incompatibles.  The  nearer  we  get  to  the  marrow  of  criminal- 
ity, the  more  closely  it  approximates  pathology. 

That  is  to  say  that  the  sound  mind  depends  largely  on  the  sound 
body ;  that  a  brain  fed  with  diseased  blood,  or  with  too  little  blood, 
cannot  work  healthily  and  well;  and  that  the  more  we  know  of 
crime  the  closer  do  we  find  its  relation  to  disease. 

I  quote  again  from  Dr.  Lydston : 

Despite  the  scant  and  conflicting  testimony  of  cerebrologists 
with  reference  to  the  brain  defects  of  criminals,  there  is  so 
much  clinical  evidence  of  the  aberration  of  morals  and  conduct 
from  brain  disease  or  injury  that  we  are  justified  in  believing 
that  brain  defects  of  some  kind  affecting  the  mental  and  moral 
faculties  is  the  fons  origo  of  criminality.  This  defect,  as  al- 
ready seen,  may  be  congenital  or  acquired,  and  may  consist  of 
a  lack  of  development  due  to  vicious  environment  and  faulty 
education,  mental  and  physical. 

The  fountain  from  which  crime  arises,  says  this  authority,  is 
some  form  of  disease,  or  defect  of  the  brain.  And  such  disease 
or  defect  may  be  inherited,  or  may  be  caused  by  bad  environment : 
by  improper  teaching,  food,  and  exercise.  To  feel  the  full  force 
of  this  statement  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  "children  are  not 
born  with  intellect  and  conscience,  but  only  with  capacities  for 
their  development." 

Therefore,  if  the  capacities  for  intellect  and  morals  are  not 
developed,  we  cannot  expect  to  find  the  intellect  and  morals. 

In  other  words,  we  have  no  right  to  hope  nor  to  expect  that  the 
neglected  child  will  grow  up  into  the  good  and  clever  man. 

Neither  is  it  reasonable  to  hope  for  a  cure  by  pumping  moral 
lessons  into  a  brain  in  which  no  moral  sense  has  been  developed. 

That  epilepsy  has  a  bad  effect  on  morals,  and  that  epileptics  are 
often  untruthful,  treacherous,  and  dangerous  is  as  well  known  as 

62 


ENVIRONMENT 

that  epilepsy  is  a  form  of  degeneracy,  and  is  often  caused  by  im- 
proper feeding  and  neglect  in  childhood. 

Hysteria  also  affects  the  moral  nerves  of  the  brain.  Dr.  Lyd- 
ston  says: 

Hysterical  women  often  bring  accusations  of  crime  against 
others.  The  victim  is  generally  a  man,  and  the  alleged  crime, 
assault.  Physicians  recognise  this  as  one  of  the  dangers  to 
be  guarded  against  in  their  work.  Hysterical  women  in  the 
primary  stage  of  anaesthesia,  sometimes  imagine  themselves  the 
victims  of  assault.  In  one  well-known  case  the  woman  ac- 
cused a  dentist  of  assault  while  he  was  administering  nitrous 
oxide  to  her.  Her  husband  was  in  the  room  during  the  imag- 
inary assault. 

Dr.  Lydston  tells  us  that  Flesch  examined  the  brains  of  fifty 
criminals,  and  found  imperfections  in  all. 

In  twenty-eight  he  found,  in  different  cases,  meningeal  dis- 
ease, such  as  adhesions,  pachy-meningitis,  interna  haemorrha- 
gica,  tubercular  meningitis,  leptomeningitis,  edema  of  the  pia 
mater,  and  haemorrhagic  spinal  meningitis;  also  atheroma  of 
the  bisillary  arteries,  cortical  atrophy,  and  cerebral  haemor- 
rhage. In  most  cases  the  pathologic  conditions  were  not  as- 
sociated with  the  psychoses  that  are  usually  found  under  such 
circumstances. 

How  many  men  have  been  hanged  or  sent  to  prison  who  ought 
to  have  been  sent  to  lunatic  asylums  ?  According  to  Dr.  Lydston, 
very  many.  As  bearing  upon  that  point  I  quote  two  passages 
from  The  Diseases  of  Society,  which  "give  one  furiously  to 
think."  The  first  is  from  page  172 : 

Cases  of  moral  turpitude,  mania  furiosa,  and  other  mental 
disturbances  are  met  with  in  which  the  patient  is  harshly 
treated,  because  of  supposed  moral  perverseness,  and  only  the 
autopsy  has  shown  how  undeservedly  the  patient  has  been  con- 
demned. When  a  tumour  or  other  disease  of  the  brain  is  found 
in  a  punished  criminal,  the  case  is  most  pathetic. 

The  other  passage  is  from  page  221,  and  is  as  follows : 

If  the  foregoing  premises  be  correct,  vice  and  crime  will  be 

63 


NOT  GUILTY 

one  day  shown  more  definitely  than  ever  to  be  a  matter  to  be 
dealt  with  by  medical  science  rather  than  by  law. 

The  "foregoing  premises"  here  alluded  to  concern  the  increase 
in  vice  and  crime  through  autotoxemia,  or  unconscious  self- 
'  poisoning,  due  to  over-strain  and  other  evil  conditions  of  life. 

As  to  this  self-poisoning,  a  few  words  may  be  said.  It  is  known 
that  birds  who  die  of  fright  are  poisonous.  That  is  because  the 
violence  of  the  emotion,  by  some  chemical  action,  evolves  poison. 

It  is  also  known  that  when  the  human  system  is  out  of  order 
it  secretes  poison.  This  poison  affects  the  brain,  and  excites  the 
baser  passions,  or  injures  the  moral  sense. 

Self-poisoning  may  be  due  to  the  presence  of  poisonous  mat- 
ter in  the  system,  or  to  the  over-strain,  or  over-excitement,  of 
business,  or  trouble. 

We  all  know  the  effects  of  violent  anger,  of  violent  grief,  or  vio- 
lent love,  or  violent  emotion  of  any  kind  upon  the  health.  We 
know  also  the  effect  of  "worry,"  and  the  effects  of  fatigue  and  of 
improper  food. 

One  of  these  effects  is  self-poisoning,  and  one  of  the  results  of 
self-poisoning  is  brain  sickness,  resulting  often  in  vice  or  in  crime. 

We  find,  then,  that  disease  may  be  caused  by  neglect  in  child- 
hood, by  starvation  or  improper  food,  by  over-work,  by  terror,  by 
excitement,  and  by  worry,  amongst  a  thousand  other  causes. 

And  we  find  that  disease  affects  the  brain,  and  very  often  leads 
to  vice,  to  crime,  to  dishonesty,  falsehood,  and  impurity. 

And  disease  is  one  part  of  our  environment. 

A  wound  or  a  shock  may  have  a  wonderful  effect  on  the  mind. 
A  man  may  slip  and  strike  his  head  on  a  stone,  and  may  get  up 
an  idiot.  A  gunshot  wound  in  the  neck,  a  sword-cut  on  the  head, 
may  cause  madness,  or  may  cause  an  injury  of  the  brain  which 
will  quite  change  the  injured  man's  moral  nature. 

As  to  the  effects  of  such  accidents  on  the  mind  there  are  many 
interesting  particulars  in  Lombroso's  book,  The  Man  of  Genius, 
from  which  I  am  tempted  to  quote  some  lines : 

It  has  frequently  happened  that  injuries  to  the  head,  and 
acute  diseases,  those  frequent  causes  of  insanity,  have  changed 
a  very  ordinary  individual  into  a  man  of  genius.  .  .  .  Gra- 
try,  a  mediocre  singer,  became  a  great  master  after  a  beam  had 
fractured  his  skull.  Mabillon,  almost  an  idiot  from  childhood, 
fell  down  a  stone  staircase  at  the  age  of  twenty-six,  and  so 
badly  injured  his  skull  that  it  had  to  be  trepanned;  from  that 

64 


ENVIRONMENT 

time  he  displayed  the  characteristics  of  genius.  .  .  .  Wal- 
lenstein  was  looked  upon  as  a  fool  until  one  day  he  fell  out  of 
a  window,  and  henceforward  began  to  show  remarkable  ability. 

Lombroso  also  gives  many  examples  and  proofs  of  the  influence 
of  weather  and  climate  on  the  mind;  but  for  these  I  have  no 
room. 

Now,  disease,  and  weather,  and  climate,  and  injuries  are  all 
parts  of  environment. 

Food 

We  have  seen  that  one  cause  of  insanity  and  disease,  and  of  im- 
morality and  crime,  is  degeneration.  And  we  have  seen  that  one 
cause  of  degeneration  is  "insufficient  or  improper  food." 

Children  who  are  half  starved  suffer  in  body  and  in  mind: 
therefore  they  suffer  in  intelligence  and  in  morals. 

Says  Dr.  Hall,  of  Leeds : 

It  matters  but  little  whether  a  child  be  born  and  bred  in  a 
palace  or  a  cottage — of  pure  pedigree  or  mongrel — if  he  does 
not  receive  a  proper  supply  of  bone-making  food  he  will  not 
make  a  good  bony  framework,  which  is  the  first  essential  of 
true  physical  well-being. 

Amongst  the  poor  it  is  a  common  thing  for  children  to  want 
food :  not  to  have  enough  food.  This  is  not  the  fault  of  the  chil- 
dren, but  is  due  to  the  poverty  of  their  parents. 

But  it  is  common  also  amongst  the  poor  for  children  to  be  fed 
upon  improper  food.  Quite  young  infants,  babies,  indeed,  are 
often  fed  upon  salt  fish,  rancid  bacon,  impure  milk.  Cases  are 
too  numerous  in  which  babies  are  given  beer,  gin,  coarse  and  badly 
cooked  meat,  inferior  bread,  and  tea. 

This  is  not  the  fault  of  the  children,  but  is  due  to  the  ignorance 
of  their  parents. 

The  results  of  such  feeding,  and  of  such  starvation,  are  weak- 
ness, poorness  of  blood,  deafness,  sore  eyes,  defective  intelligence, 
rickets,  epilepsy,  convulsions,  consumption;  degeneration  and 
death. 

Professor  Cunningham  says : 

One  point  which  is  established  beyond  all  question  is  the  re- 
markable influence  which  environment  and  nurture  exercise 

65 


NOT  GUILTY 

upon  the  development  and  growth  of  the  child,  as  well  as  upon 
the  standard  of  physical  excellence  attained  by  the  adult.  Ac- 
cording to  the  statistics  supplied  to  the  British  Association 
Committee,  children  vary  to  the  extent  of  5  in.  in  stature,  and 
adults  to  the  extent  of  3^2  in.  in  stature,  according  as  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  they  are  reared  are  favourable  or 
otherwise. 

Dr.  R.  J.  Collie,  M.D.,  speaking  of  the  mentally  defective  chil- 
dren in  the  London  Board  Schools,  says : 

In  a  large  number  of  instances,  after  the  careful  individual 
attention  and  mid-day  dinner  of  the  special  schools,  they  are 
returned,  after  from  six  to  eighteen  months,  to  the  elementary 
school  with  a  new  lease  of  mental  vigour.  These  children  are 
functionally  mentally  defective.  Their  brains  are  starved,  and 
naturally  fail  to  react  to  the  ordinary  methods  of  elementary 
teaching.  In  a  certain  proportion  of  the  cases  it  is  the  result 
of  semi-starvation. 

The  headmaster  of  a  large  school  in  London  said  to  a  Press 
representative : 

Not  5  per  cent,  of  my  400  boys  know  the  taste  of  porridge. 
New  bread,  and  margarine  at  fourpence  per  pound,  with  a 
scrap  of  fried  fish  and  potatoes  at  irregular  intervals,  is  respon- 
sible for  their  pinched,  unhealthy  appearance  and  their  stunted 
growth. 

Dr.  Lydston,  in  The  Diseases  of  Society,  says : 

The  quantity,  quality,  and  assimilation  of  food  pabulum  is 
the  keynote  of  stability  of  tissue-building.  With  the  source  of 
the  architect's  own  energy  sapped  by  innutrition,  and  the  mate- 
rials brought  to  his  hand  made  pernicious  or  defective  in  qual- 
ity or  insufficient  in  quantity,  structural  degeneracy  must  needs 
result.  The  importance  of  this  as  regards  the  brain  is  obvious. 
It  bears  directly  upon  the  question  of  the  relation  of  malnutri- 
tion to  social  pathology. 

So  much  has  been  written  and  said  of  late  about  the  evil  effects 
•of  starvation  and  improper  food  upon  the  health  and  minds  of 
children,  and  so  much  and  such  strong  evidence  has  been  put  for- 

66 


ENVIRONMENT 

ward  as  to  the  seriousness  and  the  prevalence  of  the  evil,  that  I 
need  not  go  more  fully  into  the  matter  here. 

Millions  of  children  are  ruined  in  body  and  mind,  millions  of 
degenerates  are  made  by  bad  feeding  or  under-feeding. 

And  the  good  and  the  bad  feeding  are  both  part  of  our  environ- 
ment. 

Poverty,  Labor,  and  Overcrowding 

As  the  health  affects  the  brain,  and  the  brain  the  morals,  all 
healthy  and  unhealthy  influences  have  a  moral  bearing. 

Bad  air,  bad  water,  bad  drainage,  bad  ventilation,  damp  and 
dark  streets  and  houses,  dirtiness  and  over-crowding,  all  tell 
against  the  health,  against  the  health  of  children  most  seriously, 
and  all  help  on  the  deadly  progress  of  degeneration. 

Greyness  and  monotony  of  life,  unclean,  unsightly,  and  sordid 
surroundings,  tedious  and  soulless  toil,  all  tend  to  blunt  the  senses, 
to  cloud  the  mind,  and  to  oppress  the  spirit 

Millions  of  the  working  poor,  who  live  in  great  and  noisy  cities, 
whose  neighbourhoods  are  vast,  huddled  masses  of  sunless  streets 
and  airless  courts,  whose  lives  are  divided  between  joyless  labour 
and  joyless  leisure;  the  conditions  of  whose  comfortless  and 
crowded  homes  are  such  as  make  cleanliness  and  decency  and 
self-respect  well  nigh  impossible:  millions  of  men,  women,  and 
children  are  here  starved  in  soul  as  well  as  in  body. 

These  people,  throughout  their  anxious  and  laborious  lives, 
sleep  in  the  overcrowded  cottages  and  tenements,  ride  in  the  over- 
crowded and  inconvenient  third-class  carriages,  sit  in  the  crowded 
and  stifling  galleries  at  the  theatre,  are  regaled  with  crudest  melo- 
drama, the  coarsest  humour,  the  most  vapid  music.  When  they 
read  they  have  the  Yellow  Press  and  the  literature  of  crime. 
When  they  get  to  the  seaside  they  spend  their  brief  and  rare  holi- 
day in  the  rowdiest  of  watering-places. 

They  have  no  taste  for  anything  higher?  True.  They  have 
never  been  taught  to  know  the  highest.  And  their  ignorance,  and 
their  slums,  and  their  clownish  pleasures,  are  part  of  their  envi- 
ronment. We  need  not  ask  whether  such  environment  makes  for 
culture,  for  joy,  for  health. 

They  have  no  refinement  in  their  lives,  these  poor  working  mil- 
lions. They  have  no  flowers,  no  trees,  no  fields,  no  streams;  no 
books,  no  art,  no  healthy  games. 

Worse  than  that,  perhaps,  they  are  paid  neither  honour  nor  re- 
spect :  they  are  without  pride  and  ambition ;  they  have  no  ideals, 
no  hope. 

67 


NOT  GUILTY 

The  environment  that  denies  to  human  beings  all  pride  and 
honour  and  hope,  all  art  and  nature  and  beauty,  does  not  make 
for  health,  nor  for  morality. 

The  straitness  of  means,  the  uncertainty  of  employment,  the 
looming  shadow  of  hunger  and  the  workhouse,  send  some  to  sui- 
cide and  some  to  crime,  but  leave  the  impress  of  their  dreaded 
and  evil  presence  upon  the  hearts  and  minds  of  nearly  all. 

We  must  remember  that  these  poor  creatures  are  human.  The 
difference  between  them  and  us  is  more  a  difference  of  environ- 
ment than  of  heredity.  The  hunger  for  pleasure,  for  excitement  and 
romance,  is  as  strong  in  their  soul  as  in  ours.  Like  ourselves,  they 
cannot  live  by  bread  alone.  Excitement,  pleasure  of  some  kind, 
they  must  have,  will  have.  The  hog  is  contented  to  snore  in  his 
sty,  the  cat  is  happy  with  food  and  a  place  before  the  fire;  but 
the  human  being  needs  food  for  the  soul  as  well  as  for  the  body. 
And  there  is  ample  environment  to  feed  the  hunger  of  the  igno- 
rant and  the  poor  for  excitement :  the  environment  of  betting,  and 
vice,  and  adulterated  drink. 

In  the  poor  districts  the  drinking  dens  are  planted  thickly. 
There  is  money  to  be  made.  And  they  are  blatant  and  frowsy 
places,  and  the  drink  is  rubbish — or  poison. 

I  have  seen  much  of  the  poor.  I  could  tell  strange,  pathetic 
histories  of  the  slums,  the  mines,  the  factories:  of  the  work- 
houses and  the  workhouse  school,  and  the  police-courts  where 
the  poor  are  unfairly  tried  and  unjustly  punished. 

Let  me  dip  back  into  some  of  my  past  work,  and  show  a  few 
pictures.  Here  is  a  rough  sketch  of  the  women  in  the  East  End 
slums: 

Women  in  the  Metropolis  of  the  World 

"Have  you  any  reverence  for  womanhood?  Are  you  men?  If 
you  come  here  and  look  upon  these  women,  you  shall  feel  a  burn- 
ing scorn  for  the  blazoned  lies  of  English  chivalry  and  English 
piety  and  English  Art. 

"Drudging  here  in  these  vile  stews  day  after  day,  night  after 
night;  always  with  the  wolf  on  the  poor  doorstep  gnashing  his 
fangs  for  the  clinging  brood;  always  with  the  black  future,  like 
an  ominous  cloud  casting  its  chill  shadow  on  their  anxious  hearts ; 
always  with  the  mean  walls  hemming  them  in,  and  the  mean  tasks 
wearing  them  down,  and  the  mean  life  paralysing  their  souls; 
often  with  brutal  husbands  to  coax  and  wait  upon  and  fear; 
often  with  loafing  blackguards — our  poor  brothers — living  on 

68 


ENVIRONMENT 

their  earnings;  with  work  scarce,  with  wages  low,  in  vile  sur- 
roundings, and  with  faint  hopes  ever  narrowing,  these  London 
women  face  the  unrelenting,  never-ceasing  tide  of  inglorious  war. 

"If  you  go  there  and  look  upon  these  women,  you  will  feel  sud- 
denly stricken  old.  Look  at  their  mean  and  meagre  dress,  look 
at  their  warped  figures,  their  furrowed  brows,  their  dim  eyes. 
In  how  many  cases  are  the  poor  features  battered,  and  the  poor 
skins  bruised?  What  culture  have  these  women  ever  known; 
what  teaching  have  they  had;  what  graces  of  life  have  come  to 
them;  what  dowry  of  love,  of  joy,  of  fair  imagination?  As  I 
went  amongst  them  through  the  mud  and  rain,  as  I  watched  them 
plying  their  needles  on  slop-garments,  slaving  at  the  wash-tub, 
gossiping  or  bandying  foul  jests  in  their  balcony  cages,  drinking 
at  the  bars  with  the  men — the  thought  that  rose  up  most  distinctly 
in  my  mind  was,  'What  would  these  poor  creatures  do  without 
the  gin?' 

"The  gin — that  hellish  liquor  which  blurs  the  hideous  picture 
of  life,  which  stills  the  gnawing  pain,  which  stays  the  crushing 
hand  of  despair,  and  blunts  the  grinding  teeth  of  anguish  when 
the  child  lies  dead  of  the  rickets,  or  the  'sticks'  are  sold  for  the 
rent,  or  the  sweater  has  no  more  work  to  give,  or  the  husband 
has  beaten  and  kicked  the  weary  flesh  black  and  blue !  What 
would  they  do,  these  women,  were  it  not  for  the  Devil's  usury  of 
peace — the  gin  ? 

"My  companion  took  me  to  a  bridge  across  a  kind  of  dock,  and 
told  me  it  was  known  thereabouts  as  'The  Bridge  of  Sighs.' 
There  is  a  constable  there  on  fixed-point  duty.  Why?  To  pre- 
vent the  women  from  committing  suicide.  The  suicides  were  so 
numerous,  he  said,  that  special  precautions  had  to  be  taken.  And 
since  the  constable  has  been  set  there,  so  eager  are  the  women  to 
quit  this  best  of  all  possible  worlds  that  they  have  been  known 
to  come  there  at  night  with  a  couple  of  women  friends,  and  to 
leap  into  the  deep,  still  water  while  those  friends  engaged  the 
constable  in  conversation. 

"Do  you  understand  it?  The  woman  has  been  wronged  until 
she  can  endure  no  more;  she  has  sunk  till  she  can  struggle  no 
longer;  she  has  been  beaten  and  degraded  until  she  loathes  her 
life — even  gin  has  ceased  to  buy  a  respite;  or  she  is  too  poor  to 
pay  for  gin,  and  she  drags  her  broken  soul  and  worn-out  body 
to  the  Bridge  of  Sighs,  and  her  friends  come  down  to  help  her  to 
escape  from  the  misery  which  is  too  great  for  flesh  and  blood  to 
bear.  It  is  a  pretty  picture,  is  it  not  ?  While  our  sweet  ladies  are 
sighing  in  the  West  End  theatre  over  the  imaginary  sorrows  of 

69 


NOT  GUILTY 

a  Manon  Lescaut  or  repeating  at  church,  with  genteel  reserve,  the 
prayer  for  'all  weak  women  and  young  children' — here  to  the 
Bridge  of  Sighs  comes  the  battered  drudge,  to  seek  for  death  as 
for  a  hidden  treasure,  and  rejoice  exceedingly  because  she  has 
found  a  grave." 

Many  of  these  poor  women,  perhaps  most,  are  mothers.  What 
kind  of  environment,  what  kind  of  stamina  can  they  give  their 
children  ? 

"Take  care  of  the  women,  and  the  nation  will  take  care  of 
itself."  Here  is  another  sketch  from  the  life,  taken  in  the  chain 
and  nail-making  districts  of  Staffordshire. 

Britons  Never,  Never,  Shall ? 

"In  the  chain  shops  of  the  Black  Country  the  white  man's  bur- 
den presses  sore.  It  presses  upon  the  women  and  the  children 
with  crushing  weight.  It  racks  and  shatters  and  ruptures  the 
strongest  men;  it  bows  and  twists  and  disfigures  the  comeliest 
women,  and  it  makes  of  the  little  children  such  premature  ruins 
that  one  can  hardly  look  upon  them  without  tears  or  think  of 
them  without  anger  and  indignation. 

"At  Cradley  I  saw  a  white-haired  old  woman  carrying  half  a 
hundredweight  of  chain  to  the  fogger's  round  her  shoulders;  at 
Cradley  I  saw  women  making  chain  with  babies  sucking  at  their 
breasts ;  at  Cradley  I  spoke  to  a  married  couple  who  had  worked 
1 20  hours  in  one  week  and  had  earned  i8s.  by  their  united  labour ; 
at  Cradley  I  saw  heavy-chain  strikers  who  were  worn-out  old 
men  at  thirty-five ;  at  Cradley  I  found  women  on  strike  for  a  price 
which  would  enable  them  to  earn  twopence  an  hour  by  dint  of 
labour  which  is  to  work  what  the  Battle  of  Inkerman  was  to  a 
Bank  Holiday  review.  At  Cradley  the  men  and  the  women  are 
literally  being  worked  to  death  for  a  living  that  no  gentleman 
would  offer  his  dogs. 

"Thence  to  the  domestic  workshops.  Old  women,  young  girls, 
wives  and  mothers  working  as  if  for  dear  life.  Little  children, 
unkempt  and  woebegone,  crouching  amongst  the  cinders.  No 
time  for  nursing  or  housewifery  in  the  chain  trade.  These  wonton 
earned  from  6s.  to  93.  a  week.  Some  of  them  are,  I  see,  in  an 
advanced  state  of  pregnancy. 

And  what  pleasures  have  these  people :  what  culture  and  beauty 
in  their  lives  ?  This : 

"Were  they  ever  so  anxious  to  'improve  their  minds,'  what 
leisure  have  they,  what  opportunity?  Their  lives  are  all  swelter 

70 


ENVIRONMENT 

and  sleep.  Their  town  a  squalid,  hideous  place,  ill-lighted  and 
unpaved — the  paths  and  roads  heel-deep  in  mire.  Their  houses 
are  not  homes — they  have  neither  comfort  nor  beauty,  but  are 
mere  shelters  and  sleeping-pens. 

"In  all  the  place  there  is  no  news-room  nor  free  library,  nor 
even  a  concert-hall  or  gymnasium.  There  is  no  cricket-ground, 
no  assembly-room,  no  public  bath,  no  public  park,  nor  public 
garden.  Throughout  all  that  sordid,  dolorous  region  I  saw  not 
so  much  as  one  tree,  or  flower-bed,  or  fountain.  Nothing  bright 
or  fair  on  which  to  rest  the  eye. 

"But  there  are  public-houses.  And  in  several  of  them  I  tasted 
the  liquor,  and  spilled  it  on  the  floor." 

Of  how  many  towns  and  villages  in  Europe  and  America  might 
the  same  be  said? 

Of  how  many  women  are  these  terrible  descriptions  true? 

In  the  evidence  given  before  the  Royal  Commission  on  Canal 
Labour,  it  was  stated  in  evidence  that  men  and  women  often 
worked  for  seven  days  and  nights  on  the  canals,  and  in  the 
winter. 

Some  of  the  witnesses  declared  that  the  work  was  unfit  for 
women,  that  it  was  "degrading."  The  Royal  Commissioners  could 
not  understand  the  word  degrading,  and  asked  how  it  could  de- 
grade a  woman  to  steer  a  boat.  Here  is  one  reply  given  by  an 
angry  witness : 

Do  you  think  it  womanly  work  to  push  with  a  twenty-foot  pole  a 
boat  laden  with  30  tons  of  coal?  If  you  saw  a  mother  of  a  family 
climbing  a  four-foot  wall,  you'd  think  it  was  no  work  for  women.  I 
have  seen  a  woman  knocked  into  the  lock  with  a  child  at  her  breast 
by  a  sudden  blow  of  the  tiller.  I  have  seen  my  own  sister-in-law  climb 
the  lock-gates  at  one  end  to  go  and  shut  them  at  the  other. 

Many  of  the  "cabins"  on  the  narrow  boats  are  about  seven  feet 
by  five.  In  such  cabins  sleep  the  "captain"  and  his  family ;  in  one 
case  a  man  and  his  wife,  a  girl  of  ten,  a  couple  of  younger  chil- 
dren, and  two  boys  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  years  of  age. 

Those  are  a  few  glimpses  of  the  environment  of  the  women 
and  the  children  of  the  poor. 

I  cannot  quit  the  subject  without  again  telling  an  experience 
which  hurt  me  like  a  wound.  It  was  in  a  workhouse  school :  a 
school  where  master  and  matron  did  the  best  they  could  do  for 
the  children  so  unfortunately  placed. 

Love  Hunger 

"As  we  crossed  a  bridge  from  one  building  to  another  tht  mas- 

71 


NOT  GUILTY 

ter  said  something  about  a  fish-pond,  adding,  'We  do  not  catch 
fish  here,  but  we  catch  a  good  many  mice.' 

'  'Have  you  many  mice?'  I  asked. 

"  'Yes,'  said  he,  with  a  peculiar  smile ;  'there  is  hardly  one  of 
our  big  boys  but  has  a  live  mouse  in  his  pocket.' 

"  'A  live  mouse?    What  for?' 

"  'Well,'  said  the  master,  'human  nature  is  human  nature,  and 
the  little  fellows  want  something  to  love.  Some  time  ago  the 
inspector  cautioned  a  boy  about  putting  his  hand  in  his  pocket, 
and  ordered  him  to  be  still.  The  boy  repeated  the  action,  and  as 
I  guessed  what  was  the  cause,  I  called  him  out.  He  had  a  live 
mouse  in  his  trousers  pocket,  and  was  afraid  of  its  climbing  out 
and  showing  itself  in  school.  He  took  it  out  on  his  hand.  It 
was  quite  tame.' 

"But  still  more  touching  was  a  curious  demonstration  of  the 
infants  as  we  crossed  their  playground.  Released  from  the  re- 
straint of  parade  discipline,  these  little  creatures,  girls  and  boys 
between  three  and  seven  years  of  age,  came  crowding  round  us. 
They  took  hold  of  our  hands,  several  of  them  taking  each  hand ; 
they  stroked  our  clothes,  and  embraced  our  legs.  Several  of 
them  seemed  fascinated  by  my  gold  watch-guard  (it  is  rather 
loud),  and  wanted  to  kiss  it.  I  gave  one  the  watch  to  play  with — 
my  own  children  have  often  used  it  roughly — and  his  little  eyes 
dilated  with  admiration.  They  followed  us  right  up  to  the  barrier, 
and  shook  hands  with  us. 

"  'That,'  said  the  master,  'is  a  peculiarity  of  all  workhouse  chil- 
dren. They  will  touch  you.  They  will  handle  and  kiss  any  glit- 
tering thing  you  have  about  you.  It  is  because  you  are  from 
the  outside  world.' " 

What  an  environment.  It  set  me  thinking  of  the  stories  I  had 
read  about  savages  crowding  round  white  men  who  have  landed 
on  their  shores. 

"From  the  outside  world."  "Something  to  love."  In  England 
— where  some  five  millions  a  year  are  spent  on  hunting — such  en- 
vironment is  forced  upon  an  innocent  and  defenceless  child. 

One  wonders  as  to  the  "hooligan,"  and  the  tramp,  and  the  har- 
lot, and  the  sot;  how  were  they  brought  up,  and  had  they  any- 
thing to  love? 

Education 

There  are  many  who  under-rate  the  power  of  environment 
But  there  are  few  who  deny  the  value  of  education.  And  educa- 

72 


ENVIRONMENT 

tion  is  environment.  All  education,  good  or  bad,  in  the  home  or 
the  school,  is  environment. 

And  we  all  know,  though  some  of  us  forget,  that  good  edu- 
cation makes  us  better  and  that  bad  education  makes  us  worse. 
And  we  all  know,  though  some  of  us  forget,  that  we  have  to  be 
educated  by  others,  and  that  those  others  are  part  of  our  environ- 
ment. For  even  in  the  case  of  self-education  we  must  learn  from 
books,  which  were  written  by  other  men. 

And  if  we  take  the  word  education  in  its  widest  sense,  as  mean- 
ing all  that  we  learn,  the  importance  of  this  part  of  our  environ- 
ment stares  us  in  the  face.  For  as  we  are  born  not  with  morals, 
nor  knowledge,  nor  capacities,  but  only  with  the  rudiments  of 
such,  it  is  plain  to  every  mind  that  our  goodness  or  badness,  our 
ignorance  or  knowledge,  our  helplessness  or  power,  depends  to  a 
very  great  extent  upon  the  kind  of  teaching  we  get. 

The  difference  between  the  lout  and  the  man  of  refinement  is 
generally  a  difference  of  education,  of  knowledge,  and  training. 

The  root  cause  of  most  prejudice  and  malice,  of  much  violence, 
folly,  and  crime,  is  ignorance.  There  would  be  no  despised  and 
under-paid  poor,  no  slums,  no  landless  peasants,  no  serfs,  were 
it  not  for  the  ignorance  of  the  masses,  and  the  classes.  The  rich 
impose  upon  the  poor,  and  the  poor  submit,  for  the  one  reason: 
they  do  not  understand. 

If  they  were  taught  better  they  would  do  better.  And  the  bet- 
ter teaching  would  be — improved  environment. 

It  is  not  enough  that  people  should  be  "educated,"  in  the  nar- 
row sense  of  the  word.  Teaching  may  do  harm,  as  surely  as  it 
may  do  good.  All  depends  upon  the  things  that  are  taught. 

Much  of  the  teaching  in  our  Board  Schools,  our  Public  Schools, 
and  our  Universities  is  bad. 

If  teaching  is  to  be  "good  environment,"  the  teaching  must  be 
good. 

National  or  local  ideals  are  part  of  our  environment.  We  are 
born  into  these  ideals  as  we  are  born  into  our  climate,  and  few 
escape  their  rule. 

The  ideals  of  England  are  not  good.  To  succeed,  to  make 
wealth,  to  win  applause — these  are  not  high  ideals.  To  buy  in 
the  cheapest  market  and  sell  in  the  dearest ;  to  make  England  the 
workshop  of  the  world;  to  seize  all  rich  and  unprotected  lands, 
and  force  their  inhabitants  into  the  British  Empire — these  are  not 
great  ideals. 

But  such  national  ideals  are  part  of  our  environment,  and  tell 
against,  or  for,  the  development  of  our  noblest  human  qualities. 

73 


GT7ILTT 

A  gospel  of  greed,  vanity,  and  empire  does  not  tend  to  make  a 
people  modest,  nor  just,  nor  kindly.  Indeed,  it  is  chiefly  because 
of  their  greediness  for  commerce  and  wealth,  and  their  ambition 
for  empire,  that  the  nations  to-day  are  armed  and  jealous  rivals. 
And  it  is  chiefly  because  of  their  hunger  for  wealth,  and  their  wor- 
ship of  vain  display  and  empty  honours,  that  the  classes  and  the 
masses  are  hostile  and  divided.  Ignorance  again:  they  do  not 
understand. 

The  force  of  environment,  and  especially  the  uses  of  education, 
are  stamped  upon  our  proverbs,  are  bedded  deep  in  universal  cus- 
tom. "Knowledge  is  power,"  "As  the  twig  is  bent "  "He 

who  touches  pitch  shall  be  defiled,"  "Evil  communications  cor- 
rupt good  manners."  And  what  educated  parent  would  allow  his 
children  to  grow  up  in  ignorance,  or  would  expose  them  to  the 
evil  influences  of  impure  literature  or  bad  companions. 

Every  church  and  chapel,  every  school  and  college,  every  book 
that  teaches,  every  moral  lesson,  every  chaperon  and  tutor,  is  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  power  of  environment  to  wreck  or  save 
our  young. 

In  practice  we  all  fear  or  prize  the  influences  of  environment — 
upon  ourselves,  and  upon  those  we  love. 

It  is  when  we  have  to  deal  with  the  "Bottom  Dog"  that  we  ig- 
nore the  facts  which  plead  so  strongly  in  his  defence. 

Personal  Influences 

Of  home  influences  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  speak.  The  bless- 
ing of  a  wise  and  good  mother;  the  disaster  of  an  ignorant,  vi- 
cious, or  neglectful  mother  call  for  no  reminder.  The  influence 
of  husbands  and  wives  upon  each  other;  the  transformation 
wrought  by  a  fortunate  or  unfortunate  love  passion  in  the  life  of 
a  woman  or  a  man  are  equally  obvious  and  well  understood.  So 
with  friendship :  most  men  have  known  at  least  one  friend  whose 
counsel,  conversation,  or  example  has  affected  the  entire  current 
of  their  thoughts — perhaps  has  changed  the  direction  of  their 
life.  These  instances  being  noted,  it  remains  for  us  only  to  re- 
member that  the  influence  of  a  wife,  a  lover,  a  mother,  or  a  friend 
may  be  as  powerful  for  evil  as  for  good. 

But  there  are  other  personal  influences  as  potent,  but  not  so 
generally  nor  so  wisely  recognised.  Such  are  the  influences  of 
good  or  bad  books,  and  of  great  leaders  and  teachers — good  and 
bad. 

What  tremendous  powers  over  the  lives  and  thoughts  of  mil- 

74 


ENVIRONMENT 

lions  were  wielded  by  such  teachers  as  Confucius,  Buddha,  Socra- 
tes, Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Jesus  Christ. 

How  vast  a  difference  was  wrought  amongst  the  masses  of 
humanity  by  Caesar,  Mahomet,  Alexander,  Oliver  Cromwell. 

Who  can  estimate  the  importance  to  the  world  of  Copernicus, 
Galileo,  Luther,  Calvin,  Bacon,  Darwin;  of  Rousseau,  Wycliffe, 
Tyndall,  Marx,  Homer,  Harvey,  Watt,  Caxton,  and  Stephenson? 

Which  of  us  can  assess  his  debt  to  such  men  as  Shakespeare, 
Dante,  Shelley,  Dickens,  and  Carlyle? 

Then  consider  our  account  with  the  scientists,  priests,  and  law- 
givers of  Babylon  and  Egypt.  Recall  the  benefits  conferred  upon 
us  by  the  men  who  invented  written  language ;  the  wheel,  the  file, 
the  plough.  Think  of  all  the  laborious  and  gradual  building  up 
of  the  arts,  the  ethics,  the  sciences  of  the  world.  The  making  of 
architecture,  mathematics,  sculpture,  painting,  agriculture,  work- 
ing in  wood  or  metals ;  the  evolution  of  literature  and  music,  the 
invention  and  improvement  of  the  many  decencies,  courtesies,  and 
utilities  of  life ;  from  the  first  wearing  of  loin  cloths,  the  fashion- 
ing of  flint  axes,  to  the  steel  pen,  the  use  of  chloroform,  and  the 
custom  of  raising  one's  hat  to  a  lady. 

All  the  arts  and  crafts ;  the  ethics,  sciences,  and  laws ;  the  tools, 
arms,  grammars;  the  literatures,  dramas,  and  newspapers;  the 
conveniences  and  luxuries,  the  morals  and  the  learning — all  that 
goes  to  the  making  of  modern  civilization  we  owe  to  the  genius, 
the  industry,  and  the  humanity  of  countless  men  and  women 
whom  we  have  never  seen. 

Into  all  the  wealth  of  knowledge  and  freedom,  of  wisdom  and 
virtue  they  created  and  bequeathed,  we  are  born,  as  we  are  born 
to  the  light  and  the  air.  But  for  the  labours  and  the  sacrifices  of 
the  workers,  fighters,  and  thinkers  of  the  past  we  were  shorn  of 
all  our  pride  and  power,  and  reduced  below  the  social,  intellectual, 
and  moral  level  of  the  Australian  Bushmen. 

And  yet,  to  see  the  airs  and  graces  of  many  educated  and  supe- 
rior persons,  one  might  suppose  that  they  invented  and  discovered 
and  developed  all  the  knowledge  and  wisdom,  all  the  virtues  and 
the  graces  by  which  they  benefit,  of  their  own  act  and  thought. 
One  would  suppose,  to  behold  the  scorn  of  these  superior  persons 
for  their  more  rude  and  ignorant  and  unfortunate  brothers  and 
sisters,  that  they  had  designed  and  tailored  all  the  moral  and 
intellectual  'finery  in  which  they  are  arrayed.  Whereas  all  their 
plumes  are  borrowed  plumes ;  all  they  know  they  have  been 
taught  by  other  men ;  all  they  have  has  been  made  by  other  men  ; 
and  they  have  become  that  which  they  are  through  the  generosity 


and  the  tenderness  of  other  men  and  women. 

The  rich  young  scholar  fresh  from  Harvard  or  Cambridge  is 
blessedly  endowed  with  health,  and  strength,  and  grammar,  and 
mathematics,  a  sprinkle  of  dead  languages,  and  more  or  less 
graceful  manners.  He  despises  the  lout  at  the  plough  or  the 
coster  at  the  barrow  because  of  their  lack  of  the  benefits  given  to 
him  as  a  dole.  He  forgets  that  the  University  was  there  centu- 
ries before  he  was  born,  that  Euclid,  Lindley  Murray,  Dr.  John- 
son, Cicero,  Plato,  and  a  million  other  abler  men  than  himself, 
forged  every  link  of  the  chain  of  culture  with  which  his  proud 
young  neck  is  adorned.  He  forgets  that  it  is  to  others,  and  not 
to  himself,  that  he  owes  all  that  makes  him  the  man  of  whom 
he  is  so  vain.  He  forgets  that  the  coster  at  the  barrow  and  the 
hind  at  the  plough  differ  from  him  chiefly  by  the  accident  of  birth, 
and  that  had  they  been  nursed  and  taught  and  trained  like  himself 
they  would  have  been  as  handsome,  as  active,  as  clever,  as  cul- 
tured, and  very  probably  as  conceited  and  unjust  as  he. 

For  all  the  mighty  dead,  and  the  noble  works  they  have  be- 
queathed us,  and  all  the  faithful  living,  and  all  the  tender  services 
they  render  us  and  the  shielding  love  they  bear  us,  are  parts  of 
our  environment. 

And  for  the  blessings  these  good  men  and  gentle  women,  with 
their  golden  heritage,  have  wrought  in  us,  we  are  no  more  respon- 
sible and  no  more  praiseworthy  than  we  are  for  the  flowers  of 
the  field,  or  the  constellations  in  the  sky,  or  the  warmth  of  the 
beneficent  sun  that  shines  alike  upon  the  sinner  and  the  saint. 

And  since  we  are  but  debtors  to  the  dead,  but  starvelings 
decked  out  by  charity  in  the  braveries  made  by  other  hands,  and 
since  we  are  deserving  of  no  praise  for  our  grandeur  and  our 
virtues,  how  shall  we  lift  up  our  vainglorious  and  foolish  faces 
to  despise  and  contemn  our  less  fortunate  brothers  and  sisters, 
who  have  been  made  evil,  even  as  we  have  been  made  good,  who 
have  been  left  uncouth  and  ignorant,  even  as  we  have  been  pol- 
ished and  instructed  ? 

"But  for  the  grace  of  God,"  said  the  tinker  of  Elstow — but  for 
the  graces  of  environment,  say  we — there,  in  the  hangman's  cart, 
in  the  felon's  jacket,  in  the  dunce's  cap,  in  the  beggar's  rags,  in 
the  degradation  of  the  drunkard  or  the  misery  of  the  degenerate 
weed  of  the  slums — go  WE. 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 
HOW  HEREDITY  AND 
ENVIRONMENT  WORK 

THERE  are  many  who  have  some  understanding  of  he- 
redity and  of  environment  when  taken  separately  who 
fail  to  realise  their  effects  upon  each  other. 

The  common  cause  of  the  stumbling  is  easy  to  remove. 

It  is  often  said  that  two  men  are  differently  affected  by  the 
same  environment,  or  what  seems  to  be  the  same  environment, 
and  that  therefore  there  must  be  some  power  in  men  to  "over- 
come" their  environment. 

I  have  dealt  with  this  argument  already,  showing  that  the  con- 
test between  a  man  and  his  environment  is  really  a  contest  be- 
tween heredity  and  environment,  and  may  be  compared  to  the 
effort  of  a  man  to  swim  against  a  stream. 

A  given  environment  will  affect  two  different  men  differently, 
because  their  heredity  is  different. 

But  remembering  that  we  are  born  without  any  knowledge, 
and  that  we  are  born  not  with  intellect  nor  conscience,  but  only 
with  the  rudiments  of  such,  it  must  be  insisted  that  the  hereditary 
power  to  resist  environment  is  very  limited.  So  much  so  that  we 
may  amend  our  figure  of  the  swimmer  and  the  stream,  and  say 
that  no  man,  howsoever  strong  and  brave,  could  swim  against 
a  stream  unless  he  had  learnt  to  swim. 

And  the  learning  to  swim  is  environment,  and  works  against 
the  contrary  environment,  typified  by  the  stream. 

Let  us  take  the  case  of  two  children.  One  has  bad  and  one  good 
heredity.  One  is  a  healthy  baby,  born  of  moral  stock.  The  other 
is  a  degenerate,  born  of  immoral  stock.  We  will  call  the  healthy 
baby  Dick,  and  the  degenerate  baby  Harry. 

They  are  taken  at  birth  into  an  environment  of  theft,  drunken- 
ness, and  vice.  They  are  taught  to  lie,  to  steal,  and  to  drink. 
They  never  hear  any  good,  never  see  a  good  example. 

Harry,  the  degenerate,  will  take  to  evil  as  a  duck  to  water.  Of 
that,  I  think,  there  is  no  question.  But  what  of  Dick,  the  healthy 
baby? 

Dick  is  born  without  knowledge.  He  is  also  born  with  undevel- 
oped propensities.  He  will  learn  evil.  His  propensities  will  be 

77 


NOT  GUILTY 

trained  to  evil.  How  is  he  to  "overcome  his  environment  and 
become  good"?  He  cannot.  What  will  happen  in  Dick's  case 
is  that  he  will  become  a  different  kind  of  criminal — a  stronger 
and  cleverer  criminal  than  Harry. 

But,  I  hear  some  one  say,  "we  know  that  children,  born  of 
thieves  and  sots,  and  reared  in  bad  surroundings,  have  turned  out 
honest  and  sober  men."  And  the  inference  is  that  they  rose  supe- 
rior to  their  environment. 

But  that  inference  is  erroneous.  The  fact  is  that  these  children 
were  saved  by  some  good  environment,  acting  against  the  bad. 

For  there  is  hardly  such  a  thing  as  an  environment  that  is  all 
bad.  In  the  case  of  Dick  and  Harry  we  supposed  an  environment 
containing  no  good.  But  that  was  for  the  sake  of  illustration. 

For  the  environment  to  be  all  bad,  the  child  must  be  prevented 
from  ever  seeing  a  good  deed,  or  reading  a  good  book,  or  meeting 
a  good  man,  woman,  or  child. 

Now,  we  can  imagine  no  town,  nor  slum,  in  which  a  child 
should  never  hear  nor  see  anything  good.  He  is  almost  certain 
at  some  time  or  other  to  encounter  good  influences. 

And  these  good  influences  will  affect  a  healthy  child  more 
strongly  than  they  will  affect  a  degenerate,  just  as  the  evil  influ- 
ences will  affect  him  less  fatally  than  they  will  affect  a  degenerate. 
Because  the  poor  degenerate  is  born  with  a  bias  towards  disease 
or  crime. 

Two  children  may  be  born  of  the  same  parents,  reared  in  the 
same  hovel,  in  the  same  slum,  taught  the  same  evil  lesson.  But 
they  will  meet  different  companions,  and  will  have  different  expe- 
riences. 

One  may  meet  a  good  boy,  or  girl,  or  man,  or  woman,  and  may 
be  influenced  for  good.  The  other  may  chance  upon  the  very 
worst  company. 

Let  us  suppose  that  two  children  are  born  in  a  Hoxton  slum, 
and  that  one  of  them  falls  under  the  influence  of  a  Fagin,  and 
the  other  has  the  good  fortune  to  meet  such  a  manly  and  sensible 
parson  as  our  friend  Cartmel!  Would  not  the  effects  be  very 
different?  Yet  at  first  sight  the  environment  of  the  two  boys 
would  seem  to  be  precisely  alike. 

And,  we  shall  always  find  that  the  man  who  rises  above  his  en- 
vironment has  really  been  helped  by  good  environment  to  over- 
come the  bad  environment.  He  has  learnt  some  good.  And  that 
learning  is  part  of  his  environment.  He  must  have  been  taught 
some  good  if  he  knows  any,  for  he  was  born  destitute  of  knowl- 
edge. 

78 


HOW  HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT  WORK 

A  good  mother,  a  wise  friend,  a  pure  girl,  an  honest  teacher, 
a  noble  book,  may  save  a  child  from  the  bad  part  of  his  environ- 
ment. 

It  would  appear  at  first  sight  that  two  boys  taught  in  the  same 
school,  by  the  same  teacher,  would  have  the  same  school  environ- 
ment. But  at  a  second  thought  we  find  that  need  not  be  the  case. 

We  know  what  one  bad  boy  can  do  in  a  class  or  in  a  room.  We 
may  know,  then,  that  the  boys  who  share  a  class  or  a  room  with 
a  bad  boy  have  a  worse  environment  than  the  boys  who  escape  his 
evil  influences. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  of  heredity  as  all  good,  or  all  bad.  It  is 
mixed.  We  inherit,  all  of  us,  good  and  bad  qualities. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  of  environment  as  all  good  or  all  bad. 
It  is  mixed.  There  are  always  good  and  bad  influences  around 
every  one  of  us. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  any  two  men  ever  did  or  can  have 
exactly  the  same  environment. 

It  is  as  impossible  for  the  environment  of  any  two  men  to  be 
identical,  as  for  their  heredity  to  be  identical.  As  there  are  no 
two  men  exactly  alike,  so  there  are  no  two  men  whose  experiences 
are  exactly  alike. 

Good  and  bad  environment  work  against  each  other.  All  kinds 
of  environment  work  with  or  against  heredity.  Different  heredi- 
ties make  different  natures;  different  natures  are  differently  af- 
fected by  similar  environments.  But  the  child,  being  born  with- 
out knowledge  and  with  rudimentary  faculties,  is,  whatever  his 
heredity,  almost  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  his  environment.  , 

I  hope  I  have  made  that  clear. 

One  man  is  afflicted  with  colour-blindness,  another  with  klep- 
tomania. The  kleptomaniac  may  be  the  most  troublesome  to  the 
community ;  but  is  he  more  wicked  than  the  others  ? 

Why  does  an  apple  tree  never  bear  bananas?  Because  it  can- 
not. 

Why  does  a  French  peasant  never  speak  English?  Because 
he  has  never  been  taught. 

Why  is  an  English  labourer  deficient  in  the  manners  of  polite 
society  ?  Because  he  has  never  moved  in  polite  society. 

Why  does  not  Jones  the  engineer  write  poetry  ?  Why  does  not 
Smith  of  the  Stock  Exchange  paint  pictures?  Why  does  not 
Robinson  the  musical  composer  invent  a  flying  machine? 

Because  they  have  not  the  gifts  nor  the  skill. 

Why  does  Jarman  play  the  violin  so  evilly?  He  has  no  ear, 
and  has  been  badly  taught.  Why  does  Dulcett  play  the  violin 

79 


NOT  GUILTY 

so  well  ?    He  has  a  good  ear,  and  has  been  taught  properly. 

Would  proper  teaching  have  made  a  Jarman  a  proper  player? 
It  would  have  made  him  a  less  villainous  player  than  he  has  be- 
come. But  teach  him  never  so  wisely,  Jarman  will  not  play  as 
Dulcett  plays.  He  has  not  the  gift. 

Is  it  Jarman's  fault  that  he  has  no  gift?  It  is  not.  He  did 
not  make  his  own  ear.  Whence  did  he  derive  that  defect  of  ear? 
From  some  ancestor,  near  or  remote. 

Is  Dulcett's  fine  musical  ear  due  to  any  merit  of  Dulcett's? 
No.  He  did  not  make  his  own  ear ;  he  derived  it  from  some  an- 
cestor, near  or  remote. 

Here  are  four  brothers  Brown.  John  Brown  is  a  drunkard. 
Thomas,  William,  and  Stephen  Brown  do  not  drink.  Does  John 
deserve  censure,  and  do  his  brothers  deserve  praise  ?  Let  us  see. 

Why  is  John  a  drunkard?  His  grandfather  wras  a  drunkard, 
and  he  was  sent  as  a  boy  to  work  in  a  shop  where  the  men  drank. 
Then  how  is  it  his  brothers  do  not  drink  ?  Thomas  had  the  same 
hereditary  inclination  to  drink,  and  he  derived  it  from  the  same 
source.  But  he  worked  in  an  office  where  all  the  clerks  were 
steady,  and  when  on  one  or  two  occasions  he  indulged  in  liquor, 
a  wise  friend  warned  him,  and  with  a  hard  struggle  he  escaped 
from  the  danger. 

William,  although  the  same  blood  runs  in  his  veins,  has  es- 
caped the  hereditary  taint.  To  use  the  colloquial  parlance,  "he 
does  not  take  after  his  grandfather."  He  never  felt  inclined  to 
take  liquor,  and  although  he  worked  with  men  who  drank,  he  re- 
mained steady  without  an  effort. 

Stephen  also  was  free  from  the  hereditary  taint.  He  mixed 
with  men  who  drank,  and  he  gradually  formed  the  habit,  which 
gradually  formed  the  taste  for  drink.  But  he  married  a  good 
woman  just  in  time,  and  she  saved  him.  Thus : 

John  is  a  drunkard  from  heredity  and  environment. 

Thomas  was  a  drunkard  from  heredity,  and  was  saved  by  en- 
vironment. 

William  was  always  steady  from  heredity  and  environment. 

Stephen  was  steady  from  heredity,  almost  became  a  drunkard 
from  environment,  and  was  finally  saved  by  new  environment. 

John  owed  his  ruin  to  his  grandfather  and  his  shopmates. 

Thomas  owed  his  safety  to  his  shopmates,  who  rescued  him 
from  the  taint  of  his  grandfather's  evil  legacy. 

William  owed  his  safety  to  his  blood. 

Stephen,  after  being  endangered  by  his  companions,  was  saved 
by  his  wife. 

80 


HOW  HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT  WORK 

Assuming  all  other  conditions  to  be  equal,  and  all  other  traits 
of  character  similar,  how  are  we  to  blame  one  or  praise  another 
of  these  four  brothers?  Each  is  what  descent  and  surroundings 
have  made  him. 

An  apple  tree  cannot  bear  bananas.  A  rose  tree  cannot  bear 
lilies.  A  rose  tree  in  good  soil  bears  well ;  a  rose  tree  in  bad  soil 
bears  poorly.  In  times  of  drought  the  crops  perish  for  lack  of 
water.  In  rainy  weather  the  hay  rots  instead  of  drying. 

Let  us  now  consider  some  of  the  arguments  actually  used  in 
denying  the  power  of  environment. 

Some  little  time  ago  the  Rev.  R.  J.  Campbell,  of  the  London 
City  Temple,  preached  a  sermon  on  environment.  From  a  re- 
port of  that  sermon  I  take  the  following  passage : 

His  argument  was  that  it  was  all  nonsense  to  say  that  en- 
vironment made  the  man.  The  man  who  had  any  manhood  in 
him  could  rise  above  and  beyond  his  environment,  just  as  Bun- 
yan  soared  above  his  tin  kettles. 

This  is  an  example  of  the  confusion  of  mind  into  which  edu- 
cated men  fall  when  they  deal  with  this  simple  subject. 

Mr.  Campbell's  first  mistake  is  the  mistake  of  separating  hered- 
ity from  environment.  Of  course,  it  is  nonsense  to  say  that  en- 
vironment makes  the  man.  But  who  did  say  anything  so  silly  ? 

Heredity  "makes  the  man,"  and  environment  modifies  him. 
Having  made  that  clear,  let  us  consider  Mr.  Campbell's  second 
sentence : 

The  man  who  had  any  manhood  in  him  could  rise  above 
and  beyond  his  environment,  just  as  Bunyan  soared  above  his 
tin  kettles. 

Mr.  Campbell  says :  "The  man  who  has  any  manhood  in  him." 
But  suppose  he  has  not  any  manhood  in  him!  Suppose  he  is  a 
poor  human  weed  born  of  weeds.  Can  he  bear  wheat  or  roses? 
And  if  he  only  bears  prickles  or  poison,  who  is  to  blame?  Not 
the  man,  surely,  for  he  did  not  choose  his  parents  nor  his  nature. 
Shall  we  blame  a  mongrel  born  of  curs  of  low  degree  because  he 
is  not  a  bulldog? 

A  man  can  only  realise  the  nature  that  he  has,  and  can  only 
realise  that  in  accordance  with  environment. 

But  this  same  sentence  shows  that  Mr.  Campbell  does  not  un- 
derstand what  we  mean  when  we  use  the  word  "environment" 

81 


NOT  GUILTY 

For  he  tells  us  that  a  man  can  rise  above  and  beyond  his  environ- 
ment. 

Now,  a  man's  environment  is  composed  of  every  external  influ- 
ence which  affects  him  in  any  way,  from  the  moment  of  his  birth 
to  the  moment  of  his  death. 

Therefore  a  man  cannot  rise  above  and  beyond  his  environment 
until  he  ceases  to  exist. 

Mr.  Campbell  cites  John  Bunyan  as  a  man  who  "rose  above 
his  environment."  The  fact  being  that  Bunyan's  good  environ- 
ment saved  him  from  his  bad  environment. 

From  the  preface  to  my  edition  of  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  I 
quote  the  following  suggestive  words : 

How  was  it,  one  naturally  asks,  that  a  man  of  little  educa- 
tion could  produce  two  centuries  ago  a  masterpiece  which  is 
still  read  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken,  and  has 
been  translated  into  every  European  tongue?  It  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  answer  that  the  author  of  the  work  was  a  genius :  it 
is  necessary  to  show  what  the  conditions  were  which  enabled 
his  genius  to  develop  itself,  led  him  to  find  the  form  of  expres- 
sion which  best  suited  its  character,  and  secured  for  what  it 
produced  immediate  popularity  and  lasting  fame. 

Bunyan  was  a  poor  boy  of  very  little  education.  But  he  was 
born  with  a  great  imagination,  a  sensitive  nature,  and  keen  pow- 
ers of  assimilation.  He  was,  in  short,  a  born  literary  genius. 

In  his  youth  he  got  amongst  bad  companions,  and  led  a  lewd 
and  wicked  sort  of  life. 

How,  then,  came  he  to  reform  his  life,  and  to  write  his  wonder- 
ful book?  To  listen  to  Mr.  Campbell,  one  would  suppose  that 
the  tinker's  boy  rose  against  his  environment,  and  without  any 
help  for  good  from  that  environment.  But  did  he  ? 

We  find  he  served  for  some  years  in  Cromwell's  army.  Would 
the  fierce  religious  atmosphere  of  Cromwellian  camps  have  no 
effect  upon  his  sensitive  and  imaginative  nature? 

We  find  that  he  and  his  wife  read  together  two  religious  books : 
The  Plain  Man's  Pathway  to  Heaven  and  Bishop  Bayley's  Prac- 
tice of  Piety.  Would  such  books,  so  read,  make  no  impression 
upon  his  impressionable  mind? 

We  find  that  he  was  drawn  to  go  to  church.  That  he  was 
"over-run  with  the  spirit  of  superstition."  Would  that  affect  him 
naught? 

We  find  that  his  neighbours  at  last  took  him  "to  a  very  godly 

82 


HOW  HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT  WORK 

man,  a  new  and  religious  man,  and  did  much-marvel  to  see  such 
a  great  and  famous  alteration  in  my  life  and  manners." 

Beyond  this  we  need  not  go.  The  religious  soldiers  of  Crom- 
well, the  pious  books  and  the  pious  wife,  the  spirit  of  supersti- 
tion, and  the  godly  man,  were  all  parts  of  John  Bunyan's  environ- 
ment, and,  acting  upon  the  peculiar  nature  given  to  him  by  hered- 
ity, these  and  other  facts  of  his  environment  lifted  him  up,  made 
him  what  we  know,  and  enabled  him  to  write  his  glorious  book. 

Instead  of  a  man  who  rose  above  his  environment  we  have  in 
Bunyan  a  man  who  was  led  by  one  kind  of  environment  to  gamble 
and  drink  and  blaspheme,  and  by  another  kind  of  environment 
was  made  into  a  fanatical  religious  enthusiast. 

John  Bunyan  was  John  Bunyan  when  he  played  tipcat,  and 
used  profane  language  on  the  Sabbath.  Up  to  that  time  the  "man- 
hood that  was  in  him"  had  not  saved  John  Bunyan. 

If,  as  Mr.  Campbell  suggests,  it  is  the  inherent  manhood  that 
saves  a  man,  how  was  it  that  Bunyan's  manhood,  up  to  a  certain 
point  in  his  life,  failed  to  raise  him  above  his  environment. 

And,  when  the  change  came,  what  was  it  that  brought  that 
change  about?  Bunyan  had  only  the  same  manhood:  the  same 
manhood  which  had  already  been  defeated  by  the  environment. 
How  was  it  that  same  manhood  now  served  to  raise  him  above 
the  environment? 

John  Bunyan  was  the  same  John  Bunyan;  it  was  the  environ- 
ment that  changed.  It  was  the  pious  Ironsides,  the  pious  wife, 
the  godly  man,  the  atmosphere  of  superstition,  that  made  John 
Bunyan  the  profane  tinker  into  John  Bunyan  the  man  of  relig- 
ion. 

Bad  environment  got  John  Bunyan  down :  there  is  no  doubt  of 
that.  Good  environment  lifted  him  up.  The  manhood  was  the 
same  at  both  periods.  It  was  the  environment  that  changed. 

If  ever  there  was  an  example  of  the  power  of  environment  to 
save  or  sink  a  man,  that  example  is  John  Bunyan,  tinker  and  poet. 

Another  instance  of  misunderstanding  is  afforded  by  Mr.  G.  K. 
Chesterton,  who,  in  an  article  in  the  Daily  News,  argues  against 
the  power  of  heredity  and  environment,  as  follows : 

The  well-bred  man — literally  speaking,  that  is  the  man  with 
a  heredity  and  environment  much  above  the  normal — can  put 
forth  all  the  cardinal  sins  like  scarlet  flowers  in  summer.  He 
has  lands  that  meet  the  horizon,  but  he  steals  like  a  starving 
man.  He  has  had  armies  of  comrades  in  great  colleges,  yet 
he  snarls  like  a  hunchback  hissed  in  the  street.  He  has  treas- 

83 


GUILTY 

uries  of  gold  that  he  cannot  remember ;  yet  he  goads  poor  men 
for  their  rent  like  a  threadbare  landlady  in  the  Harrow  Road. 
He  is  only  meant  to  be  polite  in  public,  and  he  cannot  even  be 
that.  The  whole  system  of  his  country  and  constitution  only 
asks  one  thing  of  him,  that  he  should  not  be  an  unpresentable 
beast — and  he  often  is.  That  is  a  type  of  aristocrat  that  does 
from  time  to  time  recur  to  remind  us  of  what  is  the  real  answer 
to  the  argument  for  aristocracy  founded  on  heredity  and  en- 
vironment. The  real  answer  to  it  is  in  two  words — Original  Sin. 

Had  Mr.  Chesterton  understood  the  subject  upon  which  he 
wrote  the  above  picturesque  but  fallacious  paragraph,  he  never 
would  have  sent  it  to  the  Press.  But  he  is  always  falling  into 
blunders  about  heredity  and  environment  because  he  has  never 
learnt  what  heredity  and  environment  are. 

He  seems  to  think  that  the  West  End  means  good  environment, 
and  that  the  East  End  means  bad  environment.  He  seems  to 
think  that  noble  blood  means  good  heredity,  and  that  simple 
blood  means  bad  heredity. 

And  he  calls  atavism  "original  sin." 

Let  us  now  consider  the  rather  melodramatic  nobleman  Mr. 
Chesterton  has  portrayed  for  us. 

He  does  not  tell  us  much  about  the  nobleman's  environment. 
He  has  lands  and  wealth,  and  has  been  to  college. 

Does  it  tend  to  the  moral  elevation  of  a  man  to  be  like  the 
"Chough"  in  Shakespeare,  "spacious  in  the  possession  of  dirt"? 
Are  the  wise  men  of  all  ages  agreed  that  the  possession  of  great 
wealth  is  a  good  environment?  Or  do  they  not  rather  teach  that 
luxury  and  wealth  are  dangerous  to  their  possessor? 

In  so  far  as  this  noble  was  a  very  wealthy  man,  I  should  say 
that  his  environment  was  not  good,  but  bad. 

There  remains  the  college.  Now,  men  may  learn  good  at  col- 
leges, and  they  may  learn  bad.  Is  not  that  so?  But  let  us  give 
Mr.  Chesterton  the  credit  and  score  the  college  down  as  good 
environment. 

There  remains  unaccounted  for — what?  All  the  life  and  expe- 
riences of  a  rich  young  man. 

What  were  his  parents  like?  Did  his  mother  nurse  him,  or 
neglect  him  ?  Did  his  father  watch  over  him,  or  let  him  run  wild  ? 
Were  his  companions  all  men  and  women  of  virtue  and  good 
sense?  Did  he  read  no  bad  books?  Did  he  make  no  dangerous 
friendships?  Did  he  ever  do  any  work?  Was  he  ever  taught 
that  there  art  nobler  ways  of  life  than  shooting  dumb  animals, 

84 


HOW  HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT  WOBK 

seducing  vain  or  helpless  girls,  debauching  at  bachelors'  parties, 
playing  at  bridge,  reading  French  novels,  and  running  loose  in 
the  gilded  hells  of  Europe  and  America  ? 

Because,  until  we  have  these  and  a  few  thousand  other  ques- 
tions answered,  we  cannot  accept  Mr.  Chesterton's  assurance  that 
this  wicked  nobleman  had  a  good  environment. 

Then,  as  to  that  question  of  "original  sin."  Is  Mr.  Chesterton 
in  a  position  to  inform  us  that  his  bold  bad  peer  is  not  a  degen- 
erate? Is  Mr.  Chesterton  sure  that  he  has  not  inherited  a  de- 
generate nature  from  diseased  or  vicious  ancestors? 

No  insanity  in  the  family?  No  gout?  No  consumption?  No 
drunkenness?  No  diseases  contracted  through  immorality  or 
vice?  All  his  family  for  a  hundred  generations  back  certified  as 
having  united  "the  manners  of  a  marquis  and  the  morals  of  a 
Methodist"? 

Quite  sure  the  noble  was  not  a  degenerate?  Quite  sure  that  his 
failure  was  not  due  to  bad  environment  instead  of  to  bad  heredity  ? 

Then  I  should  advise  Mr.  Chesterton  to  study  Darwin,  Galton, 
Lombroso,  Weissmann,  and  Dr.  Lydston,  and  he  will  find  that  a 
man  of  good  descent  may  cast  back,  or  "breed  back,"  to  the  ape 
or  hog,  may  be  born  an  atavist ;  and  may  be  incapable  of  being  a 
gentleman  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  is  a  wild  beast. 

In  which  connection  I  may  remark  that  in  The  Diseases  of  So- 
ciety Dr.  Lydston  mentions  that  Benedikt's  experiments  upon 
criminal  skulls  showed  that  the  skull  of  "the  born  criminal"  (ata- 
vist) "approximates  that  of  the  carnivora."  That  is  to  say,  a 
man  may  be  cursed  with  a  skull  resembling  that  of  a  tiger. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  such  men,  to  repeat  Mr.  Chesterton's  poet- 
ical simile,  "put  forth  sins  like  scarlet  flowers  in  summer"? 

I  am  grateful  to  Mr.  Campbell  and  to  Mr.  Chesterton  for  their 
arguments :  they  serve  the  useful  purpose  of  exemplifying  the 
confusion  of  thought  upon  this  subject  which  exists  in  quarters 
where  we  should  least  expect  to  find  it. 

As  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  we  should  thoroughly 
understand  the  relations  to  each  other  of  heredity  and  environ- 
ment, this  being  a  subject  upon  which  there  is  much  stumbling, 
we  shall  do  well  to  make  quite  sure  of  our  ground  before  we  go 
a  step  farther. 

It  is  erroneous  to  speak  of  "a  struggle  between  a  man  and  his 
environment,"  or  of  a  man  "rising  above  his  environment." 

What  we  call  "a  man"  is  a  product  of  heredity  and  environ- 
ment. The  "man"  is  larg«ly  what  environment  has  already  made 
him. 

85 


NOT  GUILTY 

At  the  instant  of  birth  a  child  may  be  regarded  as  wholly  a 
product  of  heredity.  But  his  first  breath  is  environment.  The 
first  touch  of  the  nurse's  hands  is  environment.  The  first  washing, 
the  swaddling  clothes,  the  "binder,"  and  the  first  drop  of  mother's 
milk  are  parts  of  his  environment. 

And  from  the  first  moment  of  his  birth  until  the  time  of  his 
manhood,  he  is  being  continually  moulded  and  affected  by  envi- 
ronment. 

All  his  knowledge,  all  his  beliefs,  all  his  opinions  are  given  to 
him  by  environment. 

And  now,  with  this  in  our  mind,  we  can  see  the  absurdity  of 
Mr.  Campbell's  talk  about  John  Bunyan. 

Before  his  conversion  Bunyan  was  already  "a  creature  of  he- 
redity and  environment."  The  very  conscience  of  the  man,  which 
his  wife,  and  the  godly  man,  and  Cromwell's  soldiers,  and  the 
preachings  in  the  church  he  frequented,  were  to  awaken,  had  been 
created  by  environment. 

For  a  child  is  born  without  conscience :  with  only  the  rudiments 
of  a  conscience,  to  be  developed  or  destroyed — by  environment. 

Now  let  us  reconsider  the  example  of  our  swimmer  and  the 
stream.  The  swimmer  is  something  more  than  a  mere  "heredity." 
He  is  a  man,  and  he  has  learnt  to  swim.  Therefore  in  his  battle 
with  the  stream  of  environment  he  is  using  heredity  and  environ- 
ment. For  environment  taught  him  to  swim. 

Let  us  take  another  simile.  A  man  is  rowing  a  boat  across  a 
bay.  The  tide,  the  currents,  and  the  wind  may  be  regarded  as 
environments.  All  these  environments  may  be  with  him,  or 
against  him.  Or  the  tide  may  be  against  him,  and  the  wind  in 
his  favour,  and  the  currents  dangerous  if  not  avoided. 

But  "the  man"  is  largely  what  environments  have  made  him. 
His  knowledge  of  rowing  came  from  environment,  his  knowledge 
of  the  bay  is  environment,  his  knowledge  of  the  run  and  position 
of  the  dangerous  currents  is  environment,  the  boat  and  the  oars 
belong  to  his  environment. 

And  with  all  the  useful  and  favourable  environments,  plus  his 
hereditary  qualities,  he  fights  the  adverse  environments  of  the 
wind,  and  the  tide,  and  the  currents. 

Now,  let  us  suppose  the  sea  to  be  rough,  and  the  tide  and  wind 
strong,  and  against  the  oarsman.  And  then  let  us  imagine  the 
cases  of  two  men,  one  of  whom  was  an  expert  sailor,  in  a  good 
boat,  well  found,  and  one  a  landsman,  who  could  not  row,  who 
did  not  know  the  bay,  who  did  not  understand  wind  and  tide,  who 
was  ignorant  of  the  currents,  who  had  bad  oars  and  a  leaky  boat. 

86 


HOW  HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT  WORK 

It  is  evident  that  the  sailor  would  have  a  chance  of  getting 
safely  across  the  bay,  and  that  the  landsman  would  be  in  grave 
peril  of  being  capsized,  or  carried  out  to  sea. 

And  the  difference  between  the  sailor  and  the  landsman  would 
be  entirely  a  difference  of  environment. 

But  suppose,  farther,  that  the  sailor  was  of  healthy  descent,  that 
he  was,  by  heredity,  strong,  and  brave,  and  intelligent;  and  sup- 
pose that  the  landsman  was  a  degenerate:  weak,  nervous,  faint- 
hearted, and  stupid ;  then  the  difference  would  be  one  of  heredity 
and  environment. 

And  if  the  landsman  were  drowned  and  the  sailor  came  safely 
to  shore,  should  we  curse  and  revile  the  one,  and  applaud  and 
reward  the  other.  Or  should  we  take  the  sailor's  success  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  give  our  pity  to  the  landsman? 

Well :  in  such  a  crazy  boat,  with  such  useless  oars,  with  such  a 
faint  heart,  a  lack  of  knowledge  and  skill,  and  such  a  feeble  mind, 
does  the  "Bottom  Dog"  put  out,  to  wrestle  with  the  winds  and 
storms,  and  escape  the  dangerous  currents  of  life. 

And  how  can  we  expect  the  badly  bred,  badly  trained,  badly 
taught  degenerate  to  succeed  like  the  well-bred,  well-trained,  and 
well-taught  hero  ? 

What  Mr.  Campbell  calls  John  Bunyan's  "manhood" — the  man- 
hood that  "raised  him  above  his  environment" — was  largely  com- 
posed of  environment. 

There  never  yet  has  been  a  hero  whose  heroism  was  not  in  a 
great  measure  due  to  his  environment.  Let  any  one  who  doubts 
this  look  back  to  our  suggestions  of  the  fate  of  a  child  born  into 
evil  environments. 

Every  man  is  largely  what  environment  has  made  him.  No 
man  can  be  independent  of  environment :  but  for  environment  he 
could  never  live  to  be  a  man  at  all. 

And  now  let  us  consider  some  of  the  good  and  evil  things  envi- 
ronment may  do. 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 
GOOD  AND  BAD 
SURROUNDINGS 

THERE  are  many  who  always  think  of  environment  as 
something  bad. 
We  hear  a  good  deal  about  men  who  "rise  above  their 
environment" ;  but  we  seldom  hear  of  men  who  are  up- 
lifted by  their  environment. 

Yet,  as  I  have  shown,  no  man  rises  above  bad  environment  un- 
less he  is  helped  by  good  environment. 

Those  who  dread  the  power  of  environment  cannot  have  given 
much  thought  to  the  subject. 

Instead  of  being  a  menace  to  the  human  race,  the  power  of  en- 
vironment is  the  source  of  our  brightest  hope. 

Environment  has  shaped  evolution,  and  has  raised  man  above 
the  beasts.  Environment  has  created  morality  and  conscience. 

Environment,  feared  as  a  power  for  evil,  is  also  a  power  for 
good.  If  bad  teaching,  and  evil  surroundings  make  bad  men; 
then  good  teaching,  and  good  surroundings  will  make  good  men. 

If  bad  food,  bad  air,  ignorance,  and  vice,  degrade  mankind; 
then  good  food,  good  air,  knowledge,  and  temperance  will  uplift 
mankind. 

If  men  and  women  are  largely  that  which  environment  makes 
them,  then,  by  improving  the  environment  we  can  improve  men 
and  women. 

And  here  I  come  into  touch  with  a  certain  school  of  dismal 
scientists  who  would  have  us  believe  that  it  is  useless  to  improve 
environment,  because  men  are  what  heredity  makes  them,  and  be- 
cause we  cannot  control  heredity. 

Let  us  dispose  of  these  pessimists  before  we  go  any  farther. 
Happily,  the  cases  in  which  heredity  is  stronger  than  environment 
are  few. 

Environment  cannot  make  a  model  citizen  of  the  "born 
criminal,"  or  atavist.  But  good  environment  will  make  the  worst 
man  better  than  he  would  be  under  bad  environment. 

Environment  cannot  make  a  genius.  No  amount  of  feeding, 
training,  and  teaching  will  make  an  average  man  into  a  Shakes- 

88 


GOOD  AKD  BAD  SURROUNDINGS 

peare,  or  a  Plato.     But  good  environment  will  do  more  for  the 
dullest  of  men  than  bad  environment  will  do. 

Environment  cannot  prevent  atavism.  It  may  happen  that  the 
best  of  stock  will  "breed  back"  to  a  lower  type.  It  may  happen 
that  a  criminal  or  an  incapable  will  crop  out  suddenly  in  a  line  of 
good  and  intelligent  men  and  women.  But  good  environment 
will  abolish  degeneracy,  as  certainly  as  bad  environment  will 
cause  it. 

For  the  occasional  genius  we  need  feel  no  concern.  He  will 
come  when  heredity  produces  him ;  and  he  is  welcome.  And  for 
the  atavist,  or  "born  criminal,"  we  may  be  thankful  that  he  is 
comparatively  rare,  and  may  content  ourselves  with  doing  the 
best  we  can  with  him,  in  future,  instead  of  the  worst,  as  hereto- 
fore. 

I  am  assuming  that  the  worst  type  of  born  criminal  is  quite 
hopeless;  but  I  am  not  sure  of  that.  We  can  tame  wild  beasts, 
and  why  not  wild  men? 

But  the  dismal  scientists  will  tell  us  that  even  good  environ- 
ment cannot  improve  the  race,  because  "acquired  characteristics 
cannot  be  transmitted" :  which  is  to  say  that  knowledge  cannot 
be  handed  down  hereditarily  from  father  to  son,  and  that,  there- 
fore, all  that  the  best  environment  can  do  is  to  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning with  each  generation,  to  teach  and  train  them. 

I  deny  that,  and  will  give  my  reasons.  But  suppose  we  admit 
it.  What  follows? 

Is  it  not  better  to  teach  and  to  train  each  generation  well,  than 
to  teach  and  train  them  ill  ? 

If  mental  and  physical  culture  cannot  be  handed  down;  if  the 
children  of  the  educated  and  the  well-developed  must  be  born 
uneducated  and  undeveloped,  is  it  not  better  to  have  a  generation 
of  strong  and  cultured  men  and  women  than  a  generation  of 
degenerate  weeds?  Because  we  cannot,  by  education,  raise  a 
breed  of  Washingtons  and  Darwins,  and  Miltons  and  Nelsons, 
are  we  to  content  ourselves  with  a  population  of  hooligans  and 
boors  ? 

If  environment  cannot  permanently  improve  the  breed,  is  that 
any  reason  for  making  the  worst,  instead  of  the  best,  of  the 
breed  we  now  possess  ? 

And  now,  as  to  that  question  of  improving  the  breed,  I  claim 
that  environment  would  improve  the  breed,  and  would  improve  it 
as  it  has  improved  it  in  the  past,  by  "natural  selection." 

How  do  cattle-breeders  improve  their  stock  ?  By  breeding  from 
the  best  animals,  and  not  from  the  worst. 

89 


NOT  GUILTY 

Men  of  weak  or  base  moral  natures,  and  men  of  weak  minds 
and  bodies  will,  I  believe,  generally  reproduce  their  faults  in  their 
descendants.  But,  to  marry,  they  must  find  wives. 

I  said  a  little  way  back,  "take  care  of  your  women,  and  the  race 
will  take  care  of  itself." 

Good  environment  would  "take  care  of  the  women."  The 
women  being  properly  nursed,  fed,  taught,  and  honoured,  would 
select  partners  who  would  not  shock  them  morally,  nor  disgust 
them  physically. 

Virtuous,  refined,  and  intelligent  women  do  not,  in  general — 
there  are  exceptions — love  and  marry  men  of  weak  minds,  nor 
men  of  diseased  bodies,  nor  men  of  low  moral  type. 

Therefore,  given  proper  environment,  the  "born  criminal"  and 
the  mental  weakling  would  not  be  able  to  find  wives. 

But  that  is  not  the  only  way  in  which  good  environment  would 
affect  the  breed.  Nearly  all  degeneration  is  caused  by  bad  envi- 
ronment, and  good  environment  would  stop  degeneration,  and  by 
that  means  would  improve  the  mental,  moral,  and  physical  ave- 
rage. 

It  has  been  suggested,  by  some  of  the  most  dismal  scientists, 
that  to  prevent  the  spread  of  degeneration  we  should  prevent  de- 
generates from  marrying.  But  I  think  a  sounder  method  would  be 
to  stop  the  production  of  degenerates,  by  abolishing  the  environ- 
ment that  produces  them. 

As  to  the  atavist,  or  "born  criminal,"  I  would  point  out  that 
one  of  the  laws  of  heredity  is  the  tendency  to  "revert  to  the  nor- 
mal." That  is  to  say,  genius  and  atavism  do  not  "persist."  In  a 
few  generations  the  atavist  and  the  genius  have  bred  back  to  the 
average  level. 

That,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  is  due  to  the  mixture  of  blood  by 
marriage. 

Thanks  to  this  law,  even  the  "born  criminal"  cannot  often  reap- 
pear. 

An  example  of  the  working  of  this  law  is  afforded  by  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Australian  convicts,  who  have  turned  out  excel- 
lent men  and  women. 

I  think,  then,  that  we  need  not  be  seriously  troubled  by  the 
gloomy  forebodings  of  our  pessimists.  With  bad  environment 
human  nature  has  no  chance :  with  good  environment  human  na- 
ture will  take  care  of  itself. 

And  now  let  us  look  at  some  of  the  facts  in  proof  of  the  magical 
results  of  improved  environment. 

I  have  before  me  a  newspaper  report  of  an  interview  with  Mn 

90 


GOOD  AND  BAD  SURROUNDINGS 

George  Jackson,  secretary  of  the  Middlemore  Children's  Emigra- 
tion Homes.  This  society  was  founded  some  thirty  years  ago, 
and  has  since  sent  out  to  Canada  more  than  three  thousand  chil- 
dren from  the  slums. 

The  children  came  from  the  worst  of  slums,  and  from  the 
worst  of  homes.  They  are  spoken  of  by  the  reporter  as  being  res- 
cued from  homes  "where  they  are  in  daily  contact  with  grinding 
poverty  and  misery,  in  an  atmosphere  of  moral  and  physical  foul- 
ness, with  parents  who  are  drunken,  criminal,  and  inhuman." 
And  of  these  three  thousand  waifs  not  two  in  a  hundred  turned 
out  badly. 

To  give  an  idea  of  the  working  of  a  changed  environment  in  the 
case  of  these  children,  I  will  quote  from  the  report  of  the  Bir- 
mingham Daily  Post: 

Mr.  Jackson's  view  ranges  over  some  three  thousand  chil- 
dren of  both  sexes  rescued  from  the  very  lowest  haunts  of  mis- 
ery and  vice,  picked  up  forlorn  and  deserted  from  the  gutters 
of  Birmingham,  snatched  from  the  evil  influence  of  parents 
who  had  carried  active  cruelty  or  passive  neglect  to  such  ter- 
rible lengths  that  the  retributive  hand  of  human  law  had  at  last 
fallen  upon  them,  from  parents  who  would  have  deliberately 
forced  their  offspring  to  mendicancy,  to  thievery,  or  to  prosti- 
tution. These  three  thousand  worse  than  destitute  little  ones, 
these  infants  "crying  in  the  night,  and  with  no  language  but 
a  cry,"  who  had  started  their  sad  lives  on  the  very  threshold 
of  that  dark  door  over  which  is  written,  "All  hope  abandon," 
were  rescued  by  kindly  hands  and  carried  into  the  sunshine. 
For  a  time  they  were  fed,  and  clothed,  and  schooled,  taught 
that  there  was  something  more  in  life  than  squalor  and  selfish- 
ness and  vice,  and  then  they  were  taken  thousands  of  miles 
away  from  those  foul  slums  in  which  their  eyes  had  first  opened 
to  the  murky  light,  their  tender  sensibilities  first  awakened  to 
the  bitter  lesson  of  human  pain  and  misery.  They  were  taken 
to  where  God's  fresh,  free  air  sweeps  across  leagues  of  virgin 
forest  and  prairie,  to  where  existence  is  vigorous,  it  may  be, 
but  healthy,  and  pure,  and  invigorating,  to  where  conditions  are 
such  as  to  develop  strong,  self-reliant  manhood,  instead  of  de- 
based and  neurotic  criminality.  It  was  in  the  complete  and 
sweeping  character  of  the  change  that  lay  the  wisdom  of  the 
scheme.  On  the  lone  backwood  farmstead  of  Canada  the  slum 
child  had  no  opportunity,  even  had  he  wished,  of  once  more 
coming  within  the  range  of  vicious  influences  such  as  he  had 

91 


NOT  GUILTY 

left.  There  was  no  temptation  to  many  of  the  vices  with  which 
cruel  circumstances  had  made  him  so  terribly  familiar.  Hered- 
ity of  evil  was  cheated  of  its  chances,  and  whatever  tendencies 
to  good  remained  were  fostered  and  given  full  scope  for  de- 
velopment. Further,  the  degraded  relatives  were  no  longer 
able  to  act  the  part  of  a  millstone  around  the  child's  neck,  to 
fetter  his  every  aspiration  to  a  better  life,  to  drag  him  down 
or  keep  him  down  to  their  own  dark  state.  .  .  .  Hundreds 
upon  hundreds  of  prosperous  farmers  in  Canada  at  this  day 
can  look  back  to  the  dim  past,  when  they  sold  matches  or  pa- 
pers, or  picked  up  as  best  they  could,  in  the  streets  of  Birming- 
ham, a  few  stray  coppers  to  take  home  to  their  dissolute  pa- 
rents; to  the  time  when,  with  empty  stomachs  and  with  the 
rain  and  snow  beating  through  ragged  garments  onto  their  little 
pinched  bodies,  they  cried  through  the  rigours  of  winter  nights 
on  a  sheltered  doorstep  rather  than  face  the  blows  and  curses 
which  awaited  them  in  the  only  place  which  they  could  call 
home.  They  were  born  to  poverty  and  crime  "as  the  sparks  fly 
upward,"  and  they  have  lived  to  thank  God  for  that  kindly 
agency  which  rescued  them  from  their  inheritance  of  misery. 

Of  these  three  thousand  children  two  thousand  nine  hundred 
and  forty  were  saved — by  a  change  of  environment.  Had  the  en- 
vironment been  left  unchanged  probably  not  2  per  cent,  would 
have  escaped  ruin.  As  their  parents  were,  so  would  they  have 
been.  Had  their  parents  been  rescued  in  their  youth  only  2  per 
cent,  of  them  would  have  failed. 

The  experience  of  Dr.  Barnado  and  his  friends  with  the  chil- 
dren taken  from  the  slums  was  very  similar.  The  percentage  of 
failures  was  small,  and  the  London  papers,  in  their  obituaries  of 
the  good  doctor,  speak  enthusiastically  of  the  value  of  his  work, 
and  say  that  thousands  of  children  rescued  by  him  and  his  agents 
"are  now  steady  and  prosperous  citizens  beyond  the  seas."  Since 
Dr.  Barnado  took  up  the  work  over  fifty-five  thousand  children 
have  been  saved — by  changed  environment. 

From  an  article  by  Mr.  R.  B.  Suthers  in  the  Clarion  of  August, 
1904,  I  quote  the  following  account  of  the  George  Junior  Repub- 
lic, an  American  institution,  founded  by  Mr.  William  R.  George, 
in  1896. 

The  Junior  Republic  is  a  collection  of  100  hooligans,  juvenile 
criminals,  and  unfortunate  boys  and  girls  who  live  under  a 
constitution  based  on  that  of  the  United  States.  The  govern- 

92 


GOOD  AND  BAD  SURROUNDINGS 

ment  is  government  of  the  citizens,  for  the  citizens,  and  by  the 
citizens.  Children  of  all  ages  are  admitted,  but  the  rights  of 
citizenship  are  not  granted  to  those  under  12,  and  at  21  the 
juniors  are  drafted  into  the  great  republic  outside.  Schooling 
is  compulsory  up  to  the  age  of  16,  after  which  the  citizen  has 
the  choice  of  many  trades,  in  the  Junior  Republic,  including 
farming,  carpentering,  printing,  dairying,  or  he  may  be  a  cook, 
waiter,  store  keeper,  or  office  boy.  The  girls  may  go  in  for 
dressmaking,  cooking,  and  laundry  work. 

These  boys  and  girls,  recruited  from  the  slums  and  the  crimi- 
nal forcing  beds  of  the  great  cities,  govern  themselves.  They 
make  their  own  laws,  appoint  their  own  officials,  run  their  own 
gaol,  and  are  practically  as  free  as  the  citizens  of  the  big  re- 
public of  which  they  become  full-fledged  members  when 
grown  up. 

Mr.  George  asserts  that  he  has  never  known  them  when 
administering  the  law,  to  give  an  unjust  or  foolish  decision. 

Remember  they  were  hooligans,  criminals,  and  wastrels. 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  argue  that  children  well  brought 
up  will  turn  out  better  than  children  ill  brought  up.  We  all  know 
that  such  must  be  the  case :  we  all  see  every  day  of  our  lives  that 
such  is  the  case :  we  all  know  the  power  of  environment  for  good 
as  well  as  for  evil.  But  facts  are  stubborn  things,  and  the  above 
are  stubborn  facts. 

I  have  hitherto  dealt  almost  wholly  with  the  environment  of  the 
poor,  but  it  is  needful  also  to  say  something  as  to  the  environment 
of  the  rich,  as  Mr.  Chesterton's  mistakes  have  shown. 

The  chief  evils  of  the  environment  of  the  rich  are  wealth,  lux- 
ury, idleness,  and  false  ideals. 

It  is  not  healthy  for  young  people  to  be  brought  up  to  do  noth- 
ing but  spend  money  and  hunt  for  excitement.  It  is  not  good  for 
young  or  old  to  have  unlimited  wealth  and  leisure.  It  is  not  good 
for  men,  nor  women,  nor  children,  to  be  flattered  and  fawned 
upon.  Flunkeyism  and  slavery  degrade  and  debase  the  master 
as  well  as  the  servant :  the  snob  lord,  as  well  as  the  snob  lackey. 

We  have  hundreds  of  religions  in  the  world;  but  how  many 
teachers  of  true  morality?  True  morality  condemns  all  forms  of 
selfishness,  all  acts  that  are  hurtful  to  our  neighbours,  to  the  com- 
monwealth, to  the  race.  In  the  light  of  true  morality,  a  rich  land- 
owner, or  a  millionaire  money-lender,  is  a  greater  criminal  than 
a  burglar  or  a  foot-pad;  and  a  politician  or  a  journalist  who 
utters  base  words  is  worse  than  a  coiner  who  utters  base  coin. 

93 


NOT  GUILTY 

This  being  so,  all  the  rich  are  bred  and  reared  in  an  immoral 
atmosphere. 

But  the  atmosphere  is  polluted  in  other  ways.  The  children  of 
the  rich  are  perverted  with  false  ideals.  They  are  taught  to  re- 
gard themselves  as  superior  to  the  workers,  who  keep  them.  They 
are  taught  that  it  is  sport  to  murder  helpless  and  harmless  birds 
and  beasts  and  fishes.  They  are  taught  to  toady  to  those  above, 
and  to  expect  toadyism  from  those  below  them.  They  are  given 
tacitly  to  understand  that  it  is  their  lordly  right  to  command,  and 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  masses  to  obey.  They  are  allowed  to 
believe  that  to  be  born  "spacious  in  the  possession  of  dirt,"  or 
free  to  wallow  in  unearned  money,  is  honourable,  and  that  to  be 
poor  and  landless  is  a  proof  of  inferiority. 

They  are  puffed  up  with  false  ideas  of  value,  and  suppose  that  to 
possess  an  opulence  of  pride  and  a  beggarly  smattering  of  useless 
and  often  hurtful  knowledge,  is  more  creditable  than  to  be  capable 
of  making  honest  pots  and  pans,  and  boots  and  trousers ;  of  laying 
level  pavements,  and  cutting  invaluable  drains.  They  have  their 
unfurnished  minds  lumbered  with  immoral  ideas  of  empire,  of 
conquest,  of  titles,  of  stars  and  garters.  They  are  the  spoilt  chil- 
dren of  Vanity  Fair,  and  very  many  of  them  are  the  lamentable 
failures  which  their  environment  would  lead  us  to  expect. 

No  man  is  educated  who  has  never  learnt  to  do  any  kind  of  use- 
ful work;  no  man  lives  in  a  good  environment  who  has  not  been 
taught  to  think  of  the  welfare  of  his  fellow  creatures  before  his 
own,  no  life  is  sound,  nor  sweet,  nor  moral,  which  is  not  based 
on  useful  service.  Therefore  the  environment  of  the  rich  is  gen- 
erally evil  and  not  good. 

These  are  not  the  reckless  utterances  of  any  angry  demagogue. 
Every  word  I  have  written  about  the  evils  of  idleness,  of  luxury, 
of  arrogance,  of  vain-glory  and  self-love,  is  endorsed  by  the 
teachings  of  the  wisest  and  the  best  men  of  all  ages ;  every  word 
is  supported  by  the  records  of  history,  by  the  known  facts  of  con- 
temporary life ;  every  word  is  in  accord  with  the  new  and  the  old 
morality. 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  the  environment  of 
the  rich  "puts  forth  sins  like  scarlet  flowers  in  summer." 


CHAPTER  NINE 
THE  ORIGIN  OF 
CONSCIENCE 


THE  religious  mind  loves  mysteries.  Conscience  has  al- 
ways been  set  down  as  a  mystery  by  religious  people.  It 
has  been  called  "the  still  small  voice,"  and  we  have  been 
taught  that  it  is  a  supernatural  kind  of  sense  by  which 
man  is  guided  in  his  knowledge  of  good  and  evil. 

Now,  I  claim  that  conscience  is  no  more  supernatural  than  is 
the  sense  of  smell,  and  no  more  mysterious  than  the  stomach. 

If  conscience  were  what  religious  people  think  it  is — a  kind 
of  heavenly  voice  whispering  to  us  what  things  are  right  and 
wrong — we  should  expect  to  find  its  teachings  constant.  It  would 
not  chide  one  man,  and  approve  another,  for  the  same  act.  It 
would  not  warn  men  that  an  act  was  wrong  in  one  age,  and  assure 
them  in  another  age  that  the  same  act  was  right.  It  would  not 
have  one  rule  of  morality  for  the  guidance  of  an  Englishman, 
and  another  rule  of  morality  for  the  guidance  of  a  Turk.  It 
would  not  change  its  moral  code  as  the  man  it  is  supposed  to 
guide  changes  his  beliefs  through  education  and  experience.  It 
would  not  give  such  widely  different  men  of  the  same  age  and 
nation. 

If  conscience  were  really  a  supernatural  guide  to  right  conduct 
it  would  always  and  everywhere  tell  man  what  is  eternally  right 
or  eternally  wrong. 

But  conscience  is  changeable  and  uncertain.  It  is  a  magnetic 
needle  that  points  North  at  one  time  and  South  at  another  time; 
that  points  East  on  one  ship  and  West  on  another  ship ;  that  points 
all  round  the  compass  for  all  kinds  of  travellers  on  life's  ocean; 
that  has  no  relation  to  the  everlasting  truths  at  all. 

Sceptics  have  pointed  out  that  "conscience  is  geographical"; 
that  it  gives  different  verdicts  in  different  countries,  on  the  same 
evidence. 

But  I  shall  show  that  conscience  is : 

i.     GEOGRAPHICAL  :  that  it  is  not  the  same  in  one  country  as 
in  another. 

95 


NOT  GUILTY 

2.  HISTORICAL  :  that  it  is  not  the  same  in  one  age  as  in  an- 
other. 

3.  PERSONAL  :  that  it  is  not  the  same  in  one  person  as  in  an- 
other. 

4.  CHANGEABLE  :  it  alters  with  its  owner's  mind. 

And  that,  therefore,  conscience  is  not  a  true  and  certain  guide 
to  right,  and  cannot  be  the  voice  of  God. 

First,  as  to  geographical,  or  local,  conscience.  The  English 
conscience  looks  with  horror  or  disgust  upon  polygamy,  child  mur- 
der, cannibalism,  and  the  blood  feud. 

The  Turkish  conscience  allows  many  wives;  the  Redskin  con- 
science allows  the  scalping  of  enemies ;  the  Afghan  conscience  ap- 
plauds the  dutiful  son  who  murders  the  nephew  of  his  father's 
enemy;  the  cannibal  conscience  is  silent  at  a  feast  of  cold  mis- 
sionary; the  Chinese  conscience  goes  blandly  to  the  killing  of 
girl  babies;  the  Rand  conscience  sees  no  evil  in  the  flogging  of 
Kaffirs  and  Chinese;  the  aristocratic  conscience  is  not  ashamed 
of  taking  the  bread  from  starving  peasants  and  their  children; 
the  capitalist  conscience  permits  the  making  of  fortunes  out  of 
sweated  labour. 

Now,  cannibalism,  murder,  cheating,  tyranny,  the  flogging  of 
slaves,  and  the  torture  of  enemies  are  all  immoral  and  evil  things. 
They  cannot  be  good  things  in  the  East  and  bad  things  in  the 
West.  But  conscience — the  mysterious  and  wonderful  "still  small 
voice" — blames  man  in  one  part  of  the  world  and  praises  him  in 
another  for  committing  those  acts. 

Conscience  is  local:  it  tells  one  tale  in  Johannesburg  or  Pekin, 
and  quite  a  different  tale  in  Amsterdam  or  Paris. 

And  to  find  out  which  tale  is  the  true  one  we  have  to  use  our 
reason. 

As  to  historical  conscience.  What  men  thought  good  a  few 
centuries  ago  they  now  think  bad. 

Take  only  a  few  examples.  Men  once  saw  no  wrong  in  slavery, 
in  trial  by  wager  of  battle,  in  witch-burning,  in  the  torture  of 
prisoners  to  extract  evidence,  in  the  whipping  of  lunatics,  in  the 
use  of  child-labour  in  mines  and  factories,  in  duelling,  bear-bait- 
ing, prize-fighting,  and  heavy  drinking. 

Not  very  long  ago  men  would  tear  out  a  man's  tongue  for 
"blasphemy,"  would  hang  a  woman  for  stealing  a  turnip,  would 
burn  a  bishop  alive  for  heresy,  would  nail  an  author  to  the  pillory 
by  his  ear  for  criticising  a  duke,  would  sell  women  and  children 
felons  into  slavery ;  and  conscience  would  never  whisper  a  protest. 

96 


THE  OBIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE 

Now,  it  was  wrong  to  burn  heretics,  and  pillory  reformers,  and 
work  babies  to  death  in  the  mill  and  the  mine  in  those  days,  or  it 
is  right  to  do  the  same  things  now. 

But  conscience  now  condemns  as  wrong  the  same  acts  which 
it  once  approved  as  right;  it  now  approves  as  right  what  it  once 
condemned  as  wrong. 

Conscience,  then,  differs  in  different  ages.  Conscience  tells 
two  quite  different  tales  at  two  different  times. 

And  if  we  want  to  find  out  which  tale  is  the  true  one  we  have 
to  use  our  reason. 

As  to  personal  conscience.  We  all  know  that  one  man's  con- 
science differs  from  another.  We  all  know  that  in  any  English 
town  on  any  day  there  are  as  many  varieties  of  conscience  as 
there  are  varieties  of  hands,  and  eyes,  and  feet,  and  noses. 

There  are  the  Nonconformist  conscience,  the  Roman  Catholic 
conscience,  the  Rationalist  conscience,  the  Aristocratic  conscience, 
the  Plebeian  conscience,  the  Military  conscience,  the  Commercial 
conscience,  the  Tory  conscience,  and  the  Socialist  conscience. 

One  man's  conscience  forbids  him  to  swear,  to  eat  meat,  to 
drink  wine,  to  read  a  newspaper  on  Sunday,  to  go  to  a  ball  or  a 
theatre,  to  make  a  bet,  to  play  at  cards  or  football,  to  stay  away 
from  church. 

Another  man's  conscience  permits  him  all  those  indulgences, 
but  compels  him  to  pay  trade  union  wages,  to  speak  courteously 
to  servants  and  poor  persons,  to  be  generous  to  beggars,  and  kind 
to  dumb  animals. 

A  very  striking  example  of  this  personal  difference  in  the  rul- 
ing of  conscience  is  afforded  by  the  quite  recent  contrast  between 
the  sentiments  of  Northern  and  Southern  Americans  on  the  ques- 
tion of  negro  slavery. 

Another  equally  striking  example  is  the  difference  to-day  be- 
tween the  rulings  of  the  consciences  of  Socialists  and  sweaters. 

My  own  conscience,  for  instance,  never  chides  me  for  "Sab- 
bath breaking"  nor  for  "neglect  of  God" ;  but  it  would  not  allow 
me  to  grow  rich  on  the  rent  of  slum  houses,  nor  on  the  earnings 
of  half-starved  children,  nor  on  the  sale  of  prurient  novels,  or 
adulterated  beer,  or  sized  calico. 

Now,  it  is  either  right  or  wrong  to  do  all  these  things.  It  can- 
not be  right  for  one  man  to  dance  and  wrong  for  another  to 
dance;  it  cannot  be  right  for  one  man  to  bet,  and  wrong  for  an- 
other man  to  bet;  it  cannot  be  right  for  one  man  to  draw  rents 
for  slum  houses,  and  wrong  for  another  man  to  draw  rents  for 
slum  houses. 

97 


NOT  GUILTY 

But  conscience  tells  some  men  that  it  is  right  to  do  these  things, 
and  tells  other  men  it  is  wrong  to  do  the  same  things. 

Conscience  is  not  the  same  thing  to  one  man  that  it  is  to  an- 
other man.  It  praises  Brown  and  blames  Jones  for  doing  the 
same  thing.  It  tells  different  tales  to  different  men. 

An  when  we  want  to  know  which  is  the  true  tale  we  have  to 
use  our  reason. 

As  to  changeable  conscience.  We  all  know  very  well  that  con- 
science does  not  keep  to  one  rule  of  right  and  wrong  even  with 
one  man ;  but  that  it  changes  its  rule  whenever  the  man  changes 
his  belief  through  teaching  or  experience. 

I  need  not  give  many  examples  of  these  changes.  Every 
reader  can  supply  them  for  himself.  When  I  was  a  boy  my  con- 
science pained  me  severely  if  I  stayed  away  from  Sunday  school 
or  neglected  to  say  my  prayers.  But  it  does  not  chide  me  now 
for  not  going  to  church,  nor  for  not  reading  the  Bible,  nor  for  not 
praying.  Why  has  conscience  thus  changed  its  tone  with  me? 
Simply  because  I  have  changed  my  opinions. 

But  those  things  could  not  have  been  wrong  then  if  they  are 
right  now.  Conscience  has  changed.  Conscience  changes  as  the 
mind  changes.  It  tells  one  tale  in  our  youth,  and  another  in  our 
prime,  and  perhaps  yet  another  in  our  decay. 

And  if  we  want  to  know  which  tale  is  the  true  tale  we  must 
use  our  reason. 

And  now  we  find  that  conscience  is  different  in  different  na- 
tions, in  different  cities,  in  different  classes,  in  different  persons, 
in  different  ages,  in  different  circumstances,  in  different  moods. 

And,  when  we  come  to  think  about  it,  we  find  that  conscience 
never  tells  us  anything  we  do  not  know.  It  is  a  voice  which 
always  tells  us  what  we  do  know :  what  we  believe.  It  does  not 
teach  us  what  acts  are  right  and  what  acts  are  wrong.  It  reminds 
of  what  we  have  been  taught  about  right  or  wrong. 

It  is  not  a  divine  voice,  for  it  often  leads  us  wrong.  It  is  not 
a  divine  voice,  for  it  is  no  wiser  and  no  better  than  ourselves. 

What  is  it?  What  is  conscience?  Conscience  is  chiefly  habit: 
it  is  chiefly  memory:  but  it  is  partly,  perhaps,  inherited  instinct. 

Conscience  is  habit.  We  all  know  that  it  is  easier  to  do  a  thing 
which  we  have  often  done  before  than  to  do  a  thing  we  have 
never  done  before. 

We  all  know  that  what  we  call  practice  improves  an  organ  or 
power  of  our  body  or  our  mind. 

As  the  proverbs  put  it:  "Use  is  second  nature."  "Practice 
makes  perfect." 

98 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE 

Most  of  us  know  that  an  organ  develops  with  use  and  decays 
with  disuse. 

If  you  wish  to  develop  your  muscles  you  must  use  them.  If  you 
wish  to  improve  your  memory  or  to  sharpen  your  wits  you  must 
use  them. 

When  a  man  is  first  taught  to  use  a  rifle  he  finds  to  his  surprise 
that  he  cannot  pull  the  trigger  just  exactly  when  he  wants  it.  But 
in  time  he  does  that  quite  without  thought  or  effort.  The  mus- 
cles of  his  finger  have  been  "educated"  to  act  with  his  eye. 

Some  men,  when  they  first  begin  to  shoot,  shrink  from  the  rifle. 
They  fear  the  recoil  or  the  sudden  explosion,  and  the  muscles  of 
their  shoulder  flinch.  If  a  man  gives  way  to  that  habit  it  grows 
upon  him,  and  he  can  never  shoot  straight.  The  muscles  have 
learnt  to  flinch ;  and  they  flinch. 

One  man  falls  into  the  habit  of  swearing.  The  habit  grows 
upon  him.  The  words  come  ever  more  readily  to  his  tongue, 
and  he  swears  more  and  more. 

Now,  let  us  suppose  a  boy  has  been  taught  that  it  is  wrong  to 
swear.  In  his  memory  lies  the  lesson.  It  has  been  repeated  until 
it  has  grown  strong.  When  he  hears  swearing  it  shocks  him. 
But  the  more  he  hears  it  the  less  it  shocks  him.  The  words  grow 
more  familiar  to  his  ear,  just  as  the  sound  of  a  waterfall  or  of 
machinery  grows  familiar  to  the  ear. 

Then  suppose  he  swears.  That  is  a  very  unusual  act  for  him. 
And  his  old  lesson  that  to  swear  is  wrong  is  still  firm  and  ready. 
It  is  not  his  habit  to  swear :  it  is  his  habit  to  shrink  from  swearing. 

So  if  he  swears,  his  memory,  which  has  been  educated  to  re- 
sent all  swearing,  brings  up  at  once  to  his  notice  the  lessons  of 
years. 

The  same  kind  of  thing  is  seen  on  the  cricket  field.  A  batsman 
is  playing  steadily.  He  has  been  trained  to  play  cautiously 
against  good  bowling.  But  he  has  a  favourite  stroke.  The 
bowler  knows  it.  He  sends  a  ball  very  aptly  called  a  "ticer"  to 
entice  the  batsman  to  hit,  in  the  hopes  of  a  catch.  The  desire 
to  make  that  pet  cut  or  off-drive  is  strong ;  but  the  "habit"  of  cau- 
tion is  stronger;  he  lets  the  ball  go  by.  Or  the  habit  is  not  as 
strong  as  the  desire,  and  he  cuts  the  ball ;  and,  even  as  he  watches 
it  flash  safely  through  the  field  for  the  boundary,  he  feels  that  he 
ran  a  foolish  risk,  and  must  not  repeat  it. 

What  is  it  tells  him  he  did  wrong  ?  It  is  his  memory :  his  mem- 
ory, which  has  been  educated  to  check  his  rashness.  In  fact,  it 
is  his  cricketer's  conscience  that  warns  him. 

So  with  the  youth  who  swears.  No  sooner  has  the  word  passed 

99 


NOT  GUILTY 

his  lips  than  his  educated  memory,  which  has  been  trained  to 
check  swearing,  brings  up  the  lesson,  and  confronts  him  with  it. 

But  let  him  swear  again  and  again,  and  in  time  the  moral  les- 
sons in  his  memory  will  be  overlaid  by  the  familiar  sound  of 
curses;  the  habit  of  flinching  from  an  oath  will  grow  weak,  and 
the  habit  of  using  oaths  will  grow  strong. 

It  is  really  what  happens  with  the  rifleman  who  gives  way  to 
the  recoil  and  forms  a  habit  of  flinching,  or  with  the  cricketer 
who  allows  his  desire  to  score  to  overcome  his  habit  of  caution. 
The  old  habit  fades  from  disuse;  the  new  habit  grows  strong 
from  use.  The  rifleman  becomes  a  hopelessly  bad  shot ;  the  bats- 
man degenerates  into  a  slogger:  the  young  man  swears  every 
time  he  speaks,  and  his  conscience  loses  all  power  to  check  him. 

Take  the  case  of  the  letter  "h."  The  young  Lochinvar  who 
comes  out  of  the  West  sounds  his  aitches  properly  and  easily — 
just  as  properly  and  as  easily  as  a  fencer  makes  his  parries,  as  a 
pianist  strikes  the  right  notes,  as  C.  B.  Fry  plays  a  straight  bat. 
It  is  a  matter  of  teaching  and  of  use,  and  has  become  a  habit. 
From  his  earliest  efforts  at  speech  he  has  heard  the  "h"  sounded, 
has  been  checked  if  he  failed  to  sound  it,  has  corrected  himself 
if  he  made  a  slip. 

But  the  young  Lochinvar  who  comes  out  of  the  East  drops  his 
aspirates  all  over  the  place  without  a  blush  or  a  pang.  He  has 
never  been  taught  to  sound  the  "h."  He  has  not  practised  it. 
He  has  formed  the  habit  of  not  sounding  it,  and  it  would  take 
him  years  of  painful  effort  to  change  the  habit. 

Now  what  happens  in  the  case  of  a  letter  "h"  is  what  happens  in 
the  case  of  the  rifle,  of  the  ticing  ball,  of  the  swearing.  One  man's 
memory  is  educated  to  remind  him  not  to  swear,  not  to  slog,  not  to 
flinch,  not  to  drop  the  "h."  The  other  man's  memory  is  not  so 
trained. 

And  this  trained  memory  we  call  conscience.  It  is  purely  habit : 
and  it  is  wholly  mechanical. 

There  is  a  good  story  of  a  gang  of  moonlighters  who  had  shot 
a  landlord,  and  were  afterwards  sitting  down  to  supper.  One 
man  was  just  raising  a  piece  of  meat  to  his  lips  when  the  clock 
struck  twelve.  Instantly  he  dropped  the  meat.  "Be  jabers!"  he 
said,  "  'tis  Friday !" 

That  was  the  habit  of  abstaining  from  meat  on  a  Friday.  It 
had  been  drilled  into  his  memory,  and  it  acted  mechanically. 

Conscience,  then,  is  largely  a  matter  of  habit:  it  depends  a 
great  deal  on  what  we  are  taught.  But  it  is  not  wholly  a  matter 
of  habit,  nor  does  it  depend  wholly  on  our  teaching. 

100 


/, 

THE  OKIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE 

We  all  know  that  two  brothers,  born  of  the  same  parents, 
brought  up  in  the  same  home,  educated  at  the  same  school,  taught 
the  same  moral  lessons,  may  be  quite  different  in  the  matter  of 
conscience.  One  will  shrink  from  giving  pain,  the  other  will  be 
cruel ;  one  will  be  quite  truthful,  the  other  will  tell  lies.  *,p t  ^ 

And  so  to  go  back  to  our  rifleman  and  our  cricketer.  Every 
novice  does  not  flinch  from  the  recoil,  every  batsman  is  not  pru- 
dent. No.  Because  men  are  different  by  nature. 

Some  boys  are  easy  to  train ;  some  are  not.  Some  are  naturally 
obedient ;  some  are  not.  Some  are  naturally  cruel ;  some  are  natu- 
rally merciful. 

The  conscience  of  a  boy  depends  upon  what  he  is  by  nature 
and  what  he  is  taught. 

If  the  emotion  of  anger  is  naturally  strong  in  a  boy  it  will 
need  a  better-drilled  memory  to  check  his  anger  than  if  the  emo- 
tion of  anger  were  weak. 

I  do  not  mean  it  will  need  more  teaching  to  curb  his  "will,"  but 
it  will  need  more  teaching  to  build  up  his  conviction  that  anger  is 
wrong,  because  the  motion  resists  the  teaching. 

But  in  the  case  of  a  boy  gentle  and  merciful  by  nature  it  needs 
no  teaching  to  prevent  him  from  torturing  frogs,  and  very  little 
to  make  him  know  that  to  torture  frogs  is  wrong. 

It  is  a  common  mistake  in  morals  to  say  that  a  man  is  to  blame 
for  an  act  because  he  "knew  it  was  wrong."  He  may  have  been 
told  that  it  was  wrong.  But  until  he  feels  that  it  is  wrong,  and 
believes  that  it  is  wrong,  it  is  not  true  to  say  that  he  knows  it  is 
wrong;  for  he  may  only  know  that  some  other  person  says  it  is 
wrong,  which  is  a  very  different  thing. 

For  instance,  it  might  be  said  in  this  way  that  I  am  wicked  for 
listening  to  Beethoven  on  the  Sabbath,  "because  I  know  that  it  is 
wrong."  But  I  do  not  know  that  is  wrong.  I  do  not  believe 
that  it  is  wrong.  I  only  know  that  some  people  say  it  is  wrong. 

So  I  claim  that  conscience  is  what  a  man's  nature  and  teaching 
make  it:  that  it  is  a  habit  of  memory,  and  no  more  mysterious 
than  the  habit  of  smoking,  or  dropping  the  aspirate,  or  eating  peas 
with  a  knife. 

Let  us  now  look  at  some  of  the  scientific  evidence. 

Science  and  Conscience 

I  will  quote  first  from  Darwin,  "Descent  of  Man,"  Chapter  4 : 

The  following  proposition  seems  to  me  in  a  high  degree  prob- 

101 


^ 

NOT  GUILTY 

v 

able,  namely,  that  an}  animal  whatever,  endowed  with  well- 
marked  social  instincts,  the  parental  and  filial  affections  being 
here  included,  would  inevitably  acquire  a  moral  sense  or  con- 
science as  soon  as  its  intellectual  powers  had  become  as  well, 
or  nearly  as  well,  developed  as  in  man.  .  .  .  Secondly,  as 
soon  as  the  mental  faculties  had  become  highly  developed,  im- 
ages of  all  past  actions  and  motives  would  be  incessantly  pass- 
ing through  the  brain  of  each  individual;  and  that  feeling  of 
dissatisfaction,  or  even  misery,  which  invariably  results,  as  we 
shall  hereafter  see,  from  any  unsatisfied  instinct  would  arise 
as  often  as  it  was  perceived  that  the  enduring  and  always  pres- 
ent social  instinct,  had  yielded  to  some  other  instinct,  at  the 
time  stronger,  but  neither  enduring  in  its  nature  nor  leaving 
behind  it  a  very  vivid  impression. 

Now  let  us  see  what  Darwin  means.  The  social  instincts  in- 
clude human  sympathy  and  the  desire  for  the  company  of  our 
fellows;  love  of  approbation,  which  is  the  desire  to  be  loved,  or 
to  be  thought  well  of,  by  our  fellows ;  and  gratitude,  which  is  the 
love  we  pay  back  for  the  love  which  is  given  us. 

These  social  instincts  are  sometimes  so  strong,  even  in  ani- 
mals, as  to  overcome  the  powerful  maternal  instinct;  so  that  mi- 
gratory birds,  as  Darwin  shows,  and  as  we  all  know  who  have 
read  our  Gilbert  White,  will  go  with  the  flock  and  leave  their 
new  broods  defenceless  and  unprovided  for. 

The  social  instincts,  then,  are  very  strong,  and  they  lead  us 
to  conform  to  social  rule  or  sentiment. 

But  now  Darwin  tells  us  that  in  the  case  of  man  "images  of  all 
past  actions  and  motives  would  be  incessantly  passing  through 
the  brain."  These  "images"  are  mental  pictures,  and  they  are 
printed  on  those  brain  cells  which  make  what  we  call  "memory." 

Now,  Darwin  tells  us  that  these  memory  pictures  would  cause 
us  pain  as  often  as  they  reminded  us  that  we  had  broken  the 
social  rule  or  outraged  the  social  sentiment  in  order  to  indulge 
some  instinct  of  a  selfish  kind. 

And  Darwin  makes  it  clear  to  us  that  such  a  selfish  desire  may 
be  strong  before  it  is  gratified,  and  may  yet  leave  an  impression  of 
pleasure  after  it  is  gratified  which  is  weak  indeed  in  presence  of 
the  deep-rooted  social  memories. 

Let  us  take  a  few  examples.  The  desire  for  a  pleasure  may  be 
strong  enough  to  drive  us  to  enjoy  it,  and  yet  the  pleasure  may 
seem  to  us  not  worth  the  cost  or  trouble  after  the  desire  has 
been  sated.  When  we  are  hungry  the  desire  for  food  is  intense. 

102 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE 

After  we  have  eaten  we  are  no  longer  hungry.     But  we  grow 
hungry  again,  and  then  the  desire  for  food  is  as  intense  as  ever. 

Dick  Swiveller  goes  to  a  bachelor  party,  and  the  desire  for  the 
convivial  glass  is  strong  within  him.  He  drinks  too  much,  and 
the  next  morning  calls  himself  a  fool  for  drinking.  He  is  ashamed 
of  his  excess,  and  he  has  the  headache,  and  the  temptation  is  now 
absent.  But  when  he  is  well  again,  and  at  another  party,  the  old 
desire  comes  back  with  the  old  power.  So  Dick  once  more  in- 
dulges too  freely  in  "the  rosy,"  and  has  another  sick  head  in  con- 
sequence. And  then  the  social  instincts  rise  up  and  reproach 
him,  and  the  sated  appetite,  being  weak,  appears  to  him  con- 
temptible. 

The  social  instinct  is  constant:  the  selfish  desire  is  intermit- 
tent. The  passion  is  like  a  tide  which  leaps  the  moral  wall  and 
then  falls  back  to  low  water.  The  wall  remains :  it  may  be  sul- 
lied or  shaken,  but  it  is  still  a  moral  wall,  and  only  a  long  suc- 
cession of  such  tides  can  break  it  down.  When  passion  has 
broken  down  the  moral  wall  the  man  is  at  the  mercy  of  his  pas- 
sions. They  flood  the  dwelling  of  his  soul  again  and  again  until 
he  is  a  ruin. 

This,  I  think,  explains  Darwin's  idea  of  the  struggle  between 
the  social  and  selfish  instincts. 

In  "Adam  Bede"  George  Eliot  blames  the  seducer  of  Hettie 
Sorrel  for  doing  a  terrible  wrong  for  the  sake  of  a  brief  selfish 
indulgence.  But  that  charge  is  unfair.  It  implies  that  the  deed 
was  planned  and  done  in  cold  blood.  But  the  fact  was  that  both 
Hettie  and  Arthur  were  carried  away  by  a  rush  of  passion.  The 
great  tide  of  desire,  a  desire  made  terribly  strong  by  Nature,  had 
overleapt  the  walls  of  morality  and  prudence. 

Anger  has  been  called  a  brief  madness.  The  same  kind  of 
thing  might  be  said  of  all  the  passions.  It  is  as  easy  to  be  virtuous 
after  the  temptation  as  to  be  wise  after  the  event.  We  can  all 
be  brave  in  the  absence  of  the  enemy.  The  result  of  a  struggle 
between  the  sea  and  a  wall  depends  upon  the  force  of  the  tide 
and  the  strength  of  the  wall.  It  behoves  us  all  to  see  that  moral 
walls  are  builded  strong  and  kept  in  good  repair. 

Let  us  go  back  to  the  action  of  the  memory  in  the  making  of 
morals.  Dr.  C.  W.  Saleeby,  who  is  doing  good  work  in  this  field, 
gives  us  clear  light  in  his  book,  "The  Cycle  of  Life."  He  says : 

Memory  means  a  change  impressed  more  or  less  deeply  on 
the  grey  surface  of  the  brain. 

163 


NOT  GUILTY 

A  change.  Those  "images"  which  Darwin  tells  us  are  continu- 
ally passing  through  the  mind  have  actually  made  a  change  in  the 
brain.  That  is  to  say,  they  have  made  a  change  in  the  mind:  they 
have  made  a  change  in  the  personality. 

After  showing  how  a  singer  learns  to  produce  a  note  properly 
by  practice  until  he  is  almost  incapable  of  producing  it  improp- 
erly, and  until  its  proper  production  has  become  mechanical,  Dr 
Saleeby  says: 

The  effect  of  practice,  as  in  any  other  art,  mechanical,  men- 
tal, or  both,  has  been  so  to  alter  the  constitution  of  the  nerve 
cells  as  to  produce  a  new  mode  of  action. 

The  nerve  cells  have  been  re-arranged,  and  the  habit  of  the 
person  has  been  altered.  He  is  no  longer  quite  the  same  person. 
He  now  acts  and  thinks  differently. 

Now,  these  changes  in  the  arrangement  of  the  brain  cells  and 
fibres  may  be  looked  upon  as  the  building  up  of  the  moral  wall. 
And  the  desires  and  aversions  are  like  the  rising  and  falling  tide. 

And  the  tide  of  our  desires  is  a  tide  of  nature.  Because  our 
desires  and  aversions  seem  to  work  by  reflex  action.  What  is  re- 
flex action? 

Reflex  action,  as  I  use  the  term  here,  is  the  mechanical  action 
of  the  nerves.  We  do  not  grow  hungry,  or  thirsty,  or  angry,  or 
compassionate  on  purpose :  we  do  not  fall  in  love  on  purpose. 
The  stomach,  working,  like  the  heart  and  lungs,  by  reflex  action, 
without  our  knowledge  or  direction,  uses  up  the  food,  and  our 
nerves  demand  more.  The  desire  for  food,  for  love,  for  revenge, 
is  due  to  reflex  action.  The  desire  makes  itself  felt  first  without 
our  asking,  and  we  have  to  refuse  or  to  grant  its  request  after  it 
is  made. 

We  do  not  say :  "Behold,  there  is  a  pretty  face :  I  will  be  at- 
tracted by  it."  We  cannot  help  being  attracted  by  the  face  that 
attracts  us,  any  more  than  we  can  help  being  hungry.  The  face 
attracts  us,  more  or  less,  and  we  decide  to  seek  out  its  owner, 
according  to  the  strength  of  the  attraction  and  of  the  reason  for 
resisting  the  attraction.  We  see  a  diamond.  We  do  not  say: 
"There  is  a  diamond.  I  will  not  think  it  beautiful."  We  cannot 
think  it  anything  but  beautiful ;  but  whether  or  not  we  shall  buy 
it  or  steal  it  depends  upon  the  strength  of  our  desire  and  the 
strength  of  the  reasons  against  gratifying  that  desire. 

Now,  let  us  see  how  these  conflicting  ideas  act.  A  man  sees 
a  beautiful  woman,  and  desires  to  see  more  of  her.  But  he  fears 

104 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE 

if  he  sees  much  of  her  he  will  fall  in  love  with  her.  And  he  is 
engaged  to  marry  another  woman.  What  goes  on  in  his  mind? 
Memory  reminds  him  that  he  is  engaged,  and  that  it  would  be 
"wrong"  to  follow  his  desire.  And  every  time  the  temptation 
draws  him  to  follow  his  desire  he  calls  up  the  "image"  of  the 
other  woman,  and  he  calls  up  the  images  of  old  lessons,  of  old 
thoughts,  of  old  opinions  read  and  heard  by  him.  And/  the 
stronger  the  temptation  grows  the  more  earnestly  does  he  invoke 
these  images.  Now,  what  does  all  this  show?  It  shows  the  con- 
test between  the  reflex  action  of  desire,  backed  by  the  memories 
of  love's  pleasures,  on  the  one  part;  and,  on  the  other  part,  of 
the  moral  feelings  of  memories  of  what  he  has  learnt  or  thought 
to  be  right  and  wrong.  It  is  then  a  battle  between  memory  and 
desire. 

A  man  is  never  tempted  by  a  woman  who  does  not  attract  him. 
He  never  steals  a  thing  he  does  not  want.  He  does  not  drink 
a  liquor  he  does  not  like.  The  desire  must  be  there  before  his 
will  is  put  to  the  test.  And  the  desire  is  independent  of  his  will. 

A  child  has  no  morals.  It  has  only  desires.  If  it  likes  sugar  it 
will  take  sugar.  If  it  is  angry  it  will  strike.  It  is  only  when  it 
is  told  that  to  steal  sugar  or  strike  its  nurse  is  "naughty"  that  it 
begins  to  have  a  moral  sense.  And  its  moral  sense  consists  en- 
tirely of  what  it  learns — that  is  to  say,  its  moral  sense  is  memory. 
And  its  memory  is  a  change  in  the  arrangement  of  the  cells  of  the 
grey  matter  of  the  brain.  And  these  changes  make  the  brain  into 
a  different  kind  of  brain :  make  the  child  into  a  different  kind  of 
child. 

Now,  the  child  does  not  teach  itself  these  moral  lessons.  It 
does  not  know  them.  It  has  to  be  taught  by  those  who  do  know. 
And  its  moral  sense  depends  upon  what  it  is  taught.  And  its  con- 
science depends  upon  what  it  is  taught. 

And,  that  being  so,  is  it  not  quite  evident  that  the  conscience  is 
not  the  vcice  of  God;  that  the  conscience  is  not  an  innate  knowl- 
edge of  right  and  wrong  born  with  the  child;  but  it  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  the  action  of  the  memory? 

The  whole  of  this  subject  is  ably  and  exhaustively  treated  by 
L.uys  in  "The  Brain  and  Its  Functions,"  but  I  have  not  room 
here  to  go  into  it  fully.  Briefly  put,  the  scientific  explanation  may 
be  expressed  thus :  The  brain  cells  have  power  to  receive  and  to 
repeat  impressions.  When  a  new  sensory  impulse  arises  it  awak- 
ens these  impressions  by  means  of  the  fibres  of  association.  It  is 
as  though  the  brain  were  a  phonographic  "record."  Upon  this 
"record"  there  is  printed,  let  us  say,  some  moral  lesson,  as  "Look 

105 


NOT  GUILTY 

not  upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red  in  the  cup."  On  the  word 
"wine"  being  heard  the  association  fibre  which  links  the  idea  of 
wine  to  the  moral  idea  of  temperance  sets  the  "record"  in  motion, 
and  memory  recalls  the  caution,  "Look  not  upon  the  wine  in  the 
cup."  It  is  as  if  a  "record"  on  which  is  printed  a  song  by  Dan 
I.eno  were  joined  up  with  a  battery  which,  upon  hearing  the  word 
"Leno,"  would  start  the  "record"  to  repeat  the  song. 

I  hope  I  have  made  that  clear.  I  will  now  conclude  by  quoting 
from  Dr.  Saleeby  a  passage  dealing  with  the  important  subject  of 
"association."  I  take  it  from  "The  Cycle  of  Life" : 

Nerve  cells  are  significantly  incapable  of  division  and  repro- 
duction. .  .  .  All  the  experience  of  living  merely  modifies 
the  state  of  the  cells  already  present.  The  modification  is  mem- 
ory. But  though  a  nerve-cell  cannot  divide,  it  can  send  forth 
new  processes,  or  nerve-fibres  from  itself — what  we  call  a 
nerve  being  simply  a  collection  of  processes  from  a  nerve-cell. 
Throughout  the  brain  and  spinal  cord  we  find  great  numbers 
of  nerve  processes  which  simply  run  from  one  set  of  nerve- 
cells  to  another,  instead  of  running  to  a  sense-organ,  or  a 
muscle,  or  a  gland.  Such  fibres  are  called  association  fibres, 
their  business  being  to  associate  different  sets  of  nerve-cells. 
It  is  conceivable  that  an  exceptional  development  of  such  fibres 
may  account  for  the  possession  of  a  good  memory,  or,  at  any 
rate,  for  the  power  easily  to  learn  such  co-ordinations  as  are 
implied  in  violin-playing,  billiards,  cricket,  or  baseball.  Grant- 
ing the  power  of  nerve-cells,  even  when  adult,  to  form  new 
processes,  it  might  be  supposed  that  the  exercise  of  this  power 
accounts  for  the  acquirement  of  certain  habits  of  thought  or 
action. 

Now,  whether  or  not  nerve-cells  have  power  to  form  new  as- 
sociation fibres  late  in  life,  it  is  important  to  notice  that  the  asso- 
ciation fibres  which  exist  at  birth  or  form  in  childhood  are  the 
means  by  which  one  idea  suggests  another;  and  the  means  by 
which,  as  I  said  just  now,  upon  the  utterance  of  the  word  "wine" 
all  we  have  remembered  to  have  read  or  heard  about  wine  is  re- 
peated by  the  memory  "record." 

And,  just  as  a  phonograph  record  can  only  repeat  the  song  or 
speech  that  is  printed  upon  it,  so  the  memory  can  only  repeat  what 
it  contains,  and  it  contains  nothing  that  has  not  been  printed 
there  through  the  medium  of  the  senses. 

That  is  why  the  word  "marriage"  carries  with  it  no  moral  re- 

106 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE 

vulsion  against  polygamy  in  the  mind  of  a  Turk.  The  brain  of  a 
Turk  has  no  "record"  on  its  grey  matter  of  any  moral  teaching 
against  polygamy.  And  the  "still  small  voice"  does  not  make 
good  the  absence  of  the  "record,"  and  tell  him  that  polygamy  is 
wrong.  This  being  so,  what  becomes  of  the  theory  that  con- 
science is  a  mysterious  agent  of  God  implanted  in  the  mind  of 
man  to  guide  him  to  do  right  and  to  shun  wrong? 

A  cannibal  chief  was  told  by  a  missionary  that  it  was  wicked 
to  have  two  wives.  He  went  away  and  ate  one  wife.  The  mis- 
sionary had  printed  on  his  brain  "record"  the  lesson  that  to  have 
two  wives  was  wrong;  but  there  was  no  "record"  there  to  tell 
him  he  must  not  kill  one  wife  and  eat  her. 

Where  was  the  "still  small  voice,"  the  "divine  guide  to  right 
conduct"  ? 


CHAPTER  TEN 
FREE    WILL 

THE  free  will  delusion  has  been  a  stumbling  block  in  the 
way  of  human  thought  for  thousands  of  years.  Let  us 
try  whether  common  sense  and  common  knowledge  can- 
not remove  it. 

Free  will  is  a  subject  of  great  importance  to  us  in  this  case; 
and  it  is  one  we  must  come  to  with  our  eyes  wide  open  and  our 
wits  wide  awake ;  not  because  it  is  very  difficult,  but  because  it  has 
been  tied  and  twisted  into  a  tangle  of  Gordian  knots  by  twenty 
centuries  full  of  wordy  but  unsuccessful  philosophers. 

The  free  will  party  claim  that  man  is  responsible  for  his  acts, 
because  his  will  is  free  to  choose  between  right  and  wrong. 

We  reply  that  the  will  is  not  free,  and  that  if  it  were  free  man 
could  not  know  right  from  wrong  until  he  was  taught. 

As  to  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  the  free  will  party  will 
claim  that  conscience  is  an  unerring  guide.  But  I  have  already 
proved  that  conscience  does  not  and  cannot  tell  us  what  is  right 
and  what  is  wrong:  it  only  reminds  us  of  the  lessons  we  have 
learnt  as  to  right  and  wrong. 

The  "still  small  voice"  is  not  the  voice  of  God :  it  is  the  roice  of 
heredity  and  environment. 

And  now  to  the  freedom  of  the  will. 

When  a  man  says  his  will  is  free,  he  means  that  it  is  free  of  all 
control  or  interference :  that  it  can  over-rule  heredity  and  environ- 
ment. 

We  reply  that  the  will  is  ruled  by  heredity  and  environment. 

The  cause  of  all  the  confusion  on  this  subject  may  be  showa 
in  a  few  words. 

When  the  free  will  party  say  that  man  has  a  free  will,  they 
mean  that  he  is  free  to  act  as  he  chooses  to  act. 

There  is  no  need  to  deny  that.    But  what  causes  him  to  choose ? 

That  is  the  pivot  upon  which  the  whole  discussion  turns. 

The  free  will  party  seem  to  think  of  the  will  as  something 
independent  of  the  man,  as  something  outside  him.  They  seem 
to  think  that  the  will  decides  without  the  control  of  the  man's 
reason. 

108 


FREE  WILL 

If  that  were  so,  it  would  not  prove  the  man  responsible.  ''The 
will"  would  be  responsible,  and  not  the  man.  It  would  be  as  fool- 
ish to  blame  a  man  for  the  act  of  a  "free"  will,  as  to  blame  a  horse 
for  the  action  of  its  rider. 

But  I  am  going  to  prove  to  my  readers,  by  appeals  to  their  com- 
mon sense  and  common  knowledge,  that  the  will  is  not  free ;  and 
that  it  is  ruled  by  heredity  and  environment. 

To  begin  with,  the  average  man  will  be  against  me.  He  knows 
that  he  chooses  between  two  courses  every  hour,  and  often  every 
minute,  and  he  thinks  his  choice  is  free.  But  that  is  a  delusion : 
his  choice  is  not  free.  He  can  choose,  and  does  choose.  But  he 
can  only  choose  as  his  heredity  and  his  environment  cause  him  to 
choose.  He  never  did  choose  and  never  will  choose  except  as  his 
heredity  and  his  environment — his  temperament  and  his  training 
— cause  him  to  choose.  And  his  heredity  and  his  environment 
have  fixed  his  choice  before  he  makes  it. 

The  average  man  says  "I  know  that  I  can  act  as  I  wish  to  act." 
But  what  causes  him  to  wish  ? 

The  free  will  party  say,  "We  know  that  a  man  can  and  does 
choose  between  two  acts."  But  what  settles  the  choice  ? 

There  is  a  cause  for  every  wish,  a  cause  for  every  choice ;  and 
every  cause  of  every  wish  and  choice  arises  from  heredity,  or 
from  environment. 

For  a  man  acts  always  from  temperament,  which  is  heredity, 
or  from  training,  which  is  environment. 

And  in  cases  where  a  man  hesitates  in  his  choice  between  two 
acts,  the  hesitation  is  due  to  a  conflict  between  his  temperament 
and  his  training,  or,  as  some  would  express  it,  "between  his  desire 
and  his  conscience." 

A  man  is  practising  at  a  target  with  a  gun,  when  a  rabbit 
crosses  his  line  of  fire.  The  man  has  his  eye  and  his  sights  on 
the  rabbit,  and  his  finger  on  the  trigger.  The  man's  will  is  free. 
If  he  press  the  trigger  the  rabbit  will  be  killed. 

Now,  how  does  the  man  decide  whether  or  not  he  shall  fire? 
He  decides  by  feeling,  and  by  reason. 

He  would  like  to  fire,  just  to  make  sure  that  he  could  hit  the 
mark.  He  would  like  to  fire,  because  he  would  like  to  have  the 
rabbit  for  supper.  He  would  like  to  fire,  because  there  is  in  him 
the  old,  old  hunting  instinct,  to  kill. 

But  the  rabbit  does  not  belong  to  him.  He  is  not  sure  that  he 
will  not  get  into  trouble  if  he  kills  it.  Perhaps — if  he  is  a  very 
uncommon  kind  of  man — he  feels  that  it  would  be  cruel  and  cow- 
ardly to  shoot  a  helpless  rabbit. 

109 


NOT  GUILTY 

Well.  The  man's  will  is  free.  He  can  fire  if  he  likes :  he  can 
let  the  rabbit  go  if  he  likes.  How  will  he  decide  ?  On  what  does 
his  decision  depend? 

His  decision  depends  upon  the  relative  strength  of  his  desire 
to  kill  the  rabbit,  and  of  his  scruples  about  cruelty,  and  the  law. 

Not  only  that,  but,  if  we  knew  the  man  fairly  well,  we  could 
guess  how  his  free  will  would  act  before  it  acted.  The  average 
sporting  Briton  would  kill  the  rabbit.  But  we  know  that  there 
are  men  who  would  on  no  account  shoot  any  harmless  wild 
creature. 

Broadly  put,  we  may  say  that  the  sportsman  would  will  to  fire, 
and  that  the  humanitarian  would  not  will  to  fire. 

Now,  as  both  their  wills  are  free,  it  must  be  something  outside 
the  wills  that  makes  the  difference. 

Well.  The  sportsman  will  kill,  because  he  is  a  sportsman: 
the  humanitarian  will  not  kill,  because  he  is  a  humanitarian. 

And  what  makes  one  man  a  sportsman  and  another  a  humani- 
tarian ?  Heredity  and  environment :  temperament  and  training. 

One  man  is  merciful,  another  cruel,  by  nature;  or  one  is 
thoughtful  and  the  other  thoughtless,  by  nature.  That  is  a  dif- 
ference of  heredity. 

One  may  have  been  taught  all  his  life  that  to  kill  wild  things 
is  "sport" ;  the  other  may  have  been  taught  that  it  is  inhuman  and 
wrong :  that  is  a  difference  of  environment. 

Now,  the  man  by  nature  cruel  or  thoughtless,  who  has  been 
trained  to  think  of  killing  animals  as  sport,  becomes  what  we  call 
a  sportsman,  because  heredity  and  environment  have  made  him  a 
sportsman. 

The  other  man's  heredity  and  environment  have  made  him  a 
humanitarian. 

The  sportsman  kills  the  rabbit,  because  he  is  a  sportsman,  and 
he  is  a  sportsman  because  heredity  and  environment  have  made 
him  one. 

That  is  to  say  the  "free  will"  is  really  controlled  by  heredity 
and  environment. 

Allow  me  to  give  a  case  in  point.  A  man  who  had  never  done 
any  fishing  was  taken  out  by  a  fisherman.  He  liked  the  sport, 
and  for  some  months  followed  it  eagerly.  But  one  day  an  acci- 
dent brought  home  to  his  mind  the  cruelty  of  catching  fish  with 
a  hook,  and  he  instantly  laid  down  his  rod,  and  never  fished  again. 

Before  the  change  he  was  always  eager  to  go  fishing  if  in- 
vited :  after  the  change  he  could  not  be  persuaded  to  touch  a  line. 
His  will  was  free  all  the  while.  How  was  it  that  his  will  to  fish 

110 


FREE  WILL 

changed  to  his  will  not  to  fish?  It  was  the  result  of  environ- 
ment. He  had  learnt  that  fishing  was  cruel.  This  knowledge  con- 
trolled his  will. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  how  do  you  account  for  a  man  doing 
the  thing  he  does  not  wish  to  do  ? 

No  man  ever  did  a  thing  he  did  not  wish  to  do.  When  there 
are  two  wishes  the  stronger  rules. 

Let  us  suppose  a  case.  A  young  woman  gets  two  letters  by 
the  same  post ;  one  is  an  invitation  to  go  with  her  lover  to  a  con- 
cert, the  other  is  a  request  that  she  will  visit  a  sick  child  in  the 
slums.  The  girl  is  very  fond  of  music,  and  is  rather  afraid  of  the 
slums.  She  wishes  to  go  to  the  concert,  and  to  be  with  her  lover ; 
she  dreads  the  foul  street  and  the  dirty  home,  and  shrinks  from 
the  risk  of  measles  or  fever.  But  she  goes  to  the  sick  child,  and 
she  foregoes  the  concert.  Why? 

Because  her  sense  of  duty  is  stronger  than  her  self-love. 

Now,  her  sense  of  duty  is  partly  due  to  her  nature — that  is,  to 
her  heredity — but  it  is  chiefly  due  to  environment.  Like  all  of 
us,  this  girl  was  born  without  any  kind  of  knowledge,  and  with 
only  the  rudiments  of  a  conscience.  But  she  has  been  well  taught, 
and  the  teaching  is  part  of  her  environment. 

We  may  say  that  the  girl  is  free  to  act  as  she  chooses,  but  she 
does  act  as  she  has  been  taught  that  she  ought  to  act.  This  teach- 
ing, which  is  part  of  her  environment,  controls  her  will. 

We  may  say  that  a  man  is  free  to  act  as  he  chooses.  He  is  free 
to  act  as  he  chooses,  but  he  will  choose  as  heredity  and  environ- 
ment cause  him  to  choose.  For  heredity  and  environment  have 
made  him  that  which  he  is. 

A  man  is  said  to  be  free  to  decide  between  two  courses.  But 
really  he  is  only  free  to  decide  hi  accordance  with  his  tempera- 
ment and  training. 

Brown  is  a  Member  of  Parliament.  He  is  given  to  understand 
that  by  suppressing  his  principles  he  may  get  a  seat  in  the  next 
Cabinet. 

Brown  is  very  anxious  to  get  into  the  Cabinet.  He  is  ambi- 
tious. His  wife  is  ambitious.  He  wants  to  make  a  name;  he 
wants  to  please  his  wife.  But  he  has  been  taught  that  to  sacrifice 
one's  principles  for  a  bribe  is  disgraceful. 

Now,  his  ambition  is  part  of  his  heredity;  the  things  he  has 
been  taught  are  part  of  his  environment. 

The  conflict  in  his  mind  is  a  conflict  between  the  old  Adam  and 
the  new;  between  the  older  egotism  and  the  newer  altruism.  It 
is  a  conflict  between  good  heredity  and  bad  heredity;  between 

111 


heredity  and  environment ;  and  the  victory  will  be  to  the  stronger. 

If  Brown  is  very  ambitious,  and  not  very  conscientious,  he  will 
take  the  bribe.  If  his  conscience  is  stronger  than  his  ambition, 
he  will  refuse  it.  But  to  say  that  he  is  free  to  choose  is  a  misuse 
of  terms:  he  is  only  free  to  decide  as  the  stronger  of  the  two 
motives  compels  him  to  decide.  And  the  motives  arise  from 
heredity  and  environment. 

Macbeth  was  ambitious ;  but  he  had  a  conscience.  He  wanted 
Duncan's  crown;  but  he  shrank  from  treason  and  ingratitude. 
Ambition  pulled  him  one  way,  honour  pulled  him  the  other  way. 
The  opposing  forces  were  so  evenly  balanced  that  he  seemed  un- 
able to  decide.  Was  Macbeth  free  to  choose?  To  what  extent 
was  he  free  ?  He  was  so  free  that  he  could  arrive  at  no  decision, 
and  it  was  the  influence  of  his  wife  that  turned  the  scale  to  crime. 

Was  Lady  Macbeth  free  to  choose  ?  She  did  not  hesitate.  Be- 
cause her  ambition  was  so  much  stronger  than  her  conscience  that 
she  never  was  in  doubt.  She  chose  as  her  over-powering  ambi- 
tion compelled  her  to  choose. 

And  most  of  us  in  our  decisions  resemble  either  Macbeth  or 
his  wife.  Either  our  nature  is  so  much  stronger  than  our  train- 
ing, or  our  training  is  so  much  stronger  than  our  nature,  that 
we  decide  for  good  or  evil  as  promptly  as  a  stream  decides  to  run 
down  hill ;  or  our  nature  and  our  training  are  so  nearly  balanced 
that  we  can  hardly  decide  at  all. 

In  Macbeth's  case  the  contest  is  quite  clear  and  easy  to  follow. 
He  was  ambitious,  and  his  environment  had  taught  him  to  regard 
the  crown  as  a  glorious  and  desirable  possession.  But  environ- 
ment had  also  taught  him  that  murder,  and  treason,  and  ingrati- 
tude were  wicked  and  disgraceful. 

Had  he  never  been  taught  these  lessons,  or  had  he  been  taught 
that  gratitude  was  folly,  that  honour  was  weakness,  and  murder 
excusable  when  it  led  to  power,  he  would  not  have  hesitated  at 
all.  It  was  his  environment  that  hampered  his  will. 

We  may  say  that  Wellington  was  free  to  take  a  bribe.  But 
his  heredity  and  environment  had  only  left  him  free  to  refuse  one. 
Everyone  who  knew  the  Iron  Duke  knew  how  his  free  will  would 
act  if  a  bribe  were  offered  him. 

We  may  say  that  Nelson  was  free  to  run  away  from  an  enemy. 
But  we  know  that  Nelson's  nature  and  training  had  left  him  free 
only  to  run  after  an  enemy.  All  the  world  knew  before  the  event 
how  Nelson's  free  will  would  act  when  a  hostile  fleet  hove  into 
view.  Heredity  and  enrivonment  had  settled  the  action  of  Nel- 
son's free  will  in  that  matter  before  the  occasion  to  act  arose. 

112 


FREE  WILL 

We  may  say  that  Nelson's  will  was  free  in  the  case  of  Lady 
Hamilton.  But  it  seems  only  to  have  been  free  to  do  as  Lady 
Hamilton  wished. 

When  Nelson  met  an  enemy's  fleet,  he  made  haste  to  give  them 
battle;  when  he  met  Lady  Hamilton  he  struck  his  flag.  Some 
other  man  might  have  been  free  to  avoid  a  battle;  some  other 
man  might  have  been  free  to  resist  the  fascinations  of  a  friend's 
wife.  Horatio  Nelson  was  only  free  to  act  as  his  nature  and  his 
training  compelled  him  to  act.  To  Nelson  honour  was  dearer 
than  life ;  but  Lady  Hamilton  was  dearer  than  honour. 

Nelson's  action  in  Lady  Hamilton's  case  was  largely  due  to  the 
influence  of  environment.  To  hesitate  in  war  was  universally  re- 
garded as  shameful.  But,  in  Nelson's  environment,  a  love  in- 
trigue was  condoned  as  an  amiable  human  weakness.  Hence  the 
failure  of  Nelson's  will  and  conscience  to  resist  the  blandishments 
of  the  handsome  Emma. 

We  may  say  that  Jack  Sheppard  and  Cardinal  Manning  were 
free  to  steal,  or  to  refrain  from  stealing.  But  we  know  that  the 
heredity  and  environment  of  the  thief  had  made  robbery,  for  him, 
a  proof  of  prowess,  and  a  question  of  the  value  of  the  spoil ;  and 
we  know  that  the  Cardinal  would  not  have  stolen  the  Crown 
jewels  if  he  could;  that  he  did  not  want  them,  and  would  not 
have  taken  them  if  he  had  wanted  them. 

We  say  that  a  drunkard  and  a  lifelong  abstainer  are  free  to 
drink  or  to  refuse  a  glass  of  whisky.  But  we  know  that  in  both 
cases  the  action  of  the  free  will  is  a  foregone  conclusion. 

In  all  cases  the  action  of  the  will  depends  upon  the  relative 
strength  of  two  or  more  motives.  The  stronger  motive  decides 
the  will;  just  as  the  heavier  weight  decides  the  balance  of  a  pair 
of  scales. 

In  Macbeth's  case  the  balance  seemed  almost  even :  Lady  Mac- 
beth's  persuasion  brought  down  the  scale  on  the  wrong  side. 

If  the  will  were  free,  it  would  be  independent  of  the  tempera- 
ment and  training,  and  so  would  act  as  freely  in  one  case  as  in 
another.  So  that  it  would  be  as  easy  for  the  drunkard  as  for  the 
lifelong  abstainer  to  refuse  to  drink ;  as  easy  for  the  thief  as  for 
the  Cardinal  to  be  honest ;  as  easy  for  Macbeth  as  for  Lady  Mac- 
beth to  seal  the  fate  of  Duncan. 

But  we  all  know  that  it  is  harder  for  one  man  than  for  an- 
other to  be  sober,  or  honest,  or  virtuous;  and  we  all  know  that 
the  sobriety,  or  honesty,  or  virtue  of  any  man  depends  upon  his 
temperament  and  training;  that  is  to  say,  upon  his  heredity  and 
his  environment. 

113 


NOT  GUILTY 

How,  then,  can  we  believe  that  free  will  is  outside  and  superior 
to  heredity  and  environment  ? 

In  the  case  of  the  slum  children  rescued  by  Dr.  Barnado  and 
others  we  know  that  had  they  been  left  in  the  slums  their  wills 
would  have  willed  evil,  and  we  know  that  when  taken  out  of  the 
slums  their  wills  willed  good. 

There  was  no  change  in  the  freedom  of  the  will ;  the  will  that 
is  free  in  Whitechapel  is  free  in  Manitoba.  The  difference  was 
the  environment.  In  Canada  as  in  London  the  environment  con- 
trolled the  will. 

"What!  Cannot  a  man  be  honest  if  he  choose?"  Yes,  if  he 
choose.  But  that  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  he  can  be 
honest  if  his  nature  and  his  training  lead  him  to  choose  honesty. 

"What!  Cannot  I  please  myself  whether  I  drink  or  refrain 
from  drinking?"  Yes.  But  that  is  only  to  say  you  will  not 
drink  because  it  pleases  you  to  be  sober.  But  it  pleases  another 
man  to  drink,  because  his  desire  for  drink  is  strong,  or  because 
his  self-respect  is  weak. 

And  you  decide  as  you  decide,  and  he  decides  as  he  decides,  be- 
cause you  are  you,  and  he  is  he;  and  heredity  and  environment 
made  you  both  that  which  you  are. 

And  the  sober  man  may  fall  upon  evil  days,  and  may  lose  his 
self-respect,  or  find  the  burden  of  his  trouble  greater  than  he  can 
bear,  and  may  fly  to  drink  for  comfort,  or  oblivion,  and  may  be- 
come a  drunkard.  Has  it  not  been  often  so? 

And  the  drunkard  may,  by  some  shock,  or  some  disaster,  or 
some  passion,  or  some  persuasion,  regain  his  self-respect,  and 
may  renounce  drink,  and  lead  a  sober  and  useful  life.  Has  it  not 
been  often  so? 

And  in  both  cases  the  freedom  of  the  will  is  untouched :  it  is 
the  change  in  the  environment  that  lifts  the  fallen  up,  and  beats 
the  upright  down. 

We  might  say  that  a  woman's  will  is  free,  and  that  she  could, 
if  she  wished,  jump  off  a  bridge  and  drown  herself.  But  she  can- 
not wish.  She  is  happy,  and  loves  life,  and  dreads  the  cold  and 
crawling  river.  And  yet,  by  some  cruel  turn  of  fortune's  wheel, 
she  may  become  destitute  and  miserable;  so  miserable  that  she 
hates  life  and  longs  for  death,  and  then  she  can  jump  into  the 
dreadful  river  and  die. 

Her  will  was  free  at  one  time  as  at  another.  It  is  the  environ- 
ment that  has  wrought  the  change.  Once  she  could  not  wish  to 
die:  now  she  cannot  wish  to  live. 

The  apostles  of  free  will  believe  *1»at  all  men's  wills  are  free. 

114 


FREE  WILL 

But  a  man  can  only  will  that  which  he  is  able  to  will.  And  one 
man  is  able  to  will  that  which  another  man  is  unable  to  will.  To 
deny  this  is  to  deny  the  commonest  and  most  obvious  facts  of 
life. 

The  will  is  as  free  in  one  nation  and(  in  one  class  as  in  another. 
Who  would  more  willingly  return  a  blow,  an  Irish  soldier,  or  an 
English  Quaker?  Who  would  be  readier  to  stab  a  rival,  an  Eng- 
lish curate,  or  a  Spanish  smuggler?  The  difference  does  not 
concern  the  freedom  of  the  will:  it  is  a  difference  of  heredity 
and  environment. 

The  wills  of  a  priest  and  a  sailor  are  free — free  to  make  love  in 
every  port,  and  to  swear  in  every  breeze.  The  difference  is  one 
of  environment. 

The  free  will  party  look  upon  a  criminal  as  a  bad  man,  who 
could  be  good  if  he  wished :  but  he  cannot  wish. 

The  free  will  party  say  that  if  Smith  wills  to  drink  he  is  bad. 
But  we  say  that  Smith  drinks,  and  to  drink  is  bad;  but  Smith 
drinks  because  he  is  Smith. 

The  free  will  party  say,  "then  he  was  born  bad."  But  we  say 
"no :  he  was  born  Smith." 

We  all  know  that  ~we  can  foretell  the  action  of  certain  men  in 
certain  cases,  because  we  know  the  men. 

We  know  that  under  the  same  conditions  Jack  Sheppard  would 
steal  and  Cardinal  Manning  would  not  steal.  We  know  that  un- 
der the  same  conditions  the  sailor  would  flirt  with  the  waitress, 
and  the  priest  would  not;  that  the  drunkard  would  get  drunk, 
and  the  abstainer  would  remain  sober.  We  know  that  Wellington 
would  refuse  a  bribe,  that  Nelson  would  not  run  away,  that  Buon- 
aparte would  grasp  at  power,  that  Abraham  Lincoln  would  be 
loyal  to  his  country,  that  Torquemada  would  not  spare  a  heretic. 
Why?  If  the  will  is  free,  how  can  we  be  sure,  before  a  test  arises, 
how  the  will  must  act? 

Simply  because  we  know  that  heredity  and  environment  have 
so  formed  and  moulded  men  and  women  that  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances the  action  of  their  wills  is  certain. 

Heredity  and  environment  having  made  a  man  a  thief,  he  will 
steal.  Heredity  and  environment  having  made  a  man  honest,  he 
will  not  steal. 

That  is  to  say,  heredity  and  environment  have  decided  the  ac- 
tion of  the  will,  before  the  time  has  come  for  the  will  to  act. 

This  being  so — and  we  all  know  that  it  is  so — what  becomes 
of  the  sovereignty  of  the  will? 

Let  any  man  that  believes  that  he  can  "do  as  he  likes"  ask  him- 

115 


NOT  GUILTY 

self  why  he  likes,  and  he  will  see  the  error  of  the  theory  of  free 
will,  and  will  understand  why  the  will  is  the  servant  and  not 
the  maser  of  the  man:  for  the  man  is  the  product  of  heredity 
and  environment,  and  these  control  the  will. 

As  we  want  to  get  this  subject  as  clear  as  we  can,  let  us  take 
one  or  two  familiar  examples  of  the  action  of  the  will. 

Jones  and  Robinson  meet  and  have  a  glass  of  whisky.  Jones 
asks  Robinson  to  have  another.  Robinson  says,  "no  thank  you, 
one  is  enough."  Jones  says,  "all  right:  have  another  cigarette." 
Robinson  takes  the  cigarette.  Now,  here  we  have  a  case  where 
a  man  refuses  a  second  drink,  but  takes  a  second  smoke.  Is  it  be- 
cause he  would  like  another  cigarette,  but  would  not  like  another 
glass  of  whisky?  No.  It  is  because  he  knows  that  it  is  safer  not 
to  take  another  glass  of  whisky. 

How  does  he  know  that  whisky  is  dangerous?  He  has  learnt 
it — from  his  environment. 

"But  he  could  have  taken  another  glass  if  he  wished." 

But  he  could  not  wish  to  take  another,  because  there  was  some- 
thing he  wished  more  strongly — to  be  safe. 

And  why  did  he  want  to  be  safe  ?  Because  he  had  learnt — from 
his  environment — that  it  was  unhealthy,  unprofitable,  and  shame- 
ful to  get  drunk.  Because  he  had  learnt — from  his  environment — 
that  it  is  easier  to  avoid  forming  a  bad  habit  than  to  break  a  bad 
habit  when  formed.  Because  he  valued  the  good  opinion  of  his 
neighbours,  and  also  his  position  and  prospects. 

These  feelings  and  this  knowledge  ruled  his  will,  and  caused 
him  to  refuse  the  second  glass. 

But  there  was  no  sense  of  danger,  no  well-learned  lesson  of  risk 
to  check  his  will  to  smoke  another  cigarette.  Heredity  and  en- 
vironment did  not  warn  him  against  that.  So,  to  please  his  friend, 
and  himself,  he  accepted. 

Now  suppose  Smith  asks  Williams  to  have  another  glass.  Wil- 
liams takes  it,  takes  several,  finally  goes  home — as  he  often  goes 
home.  Why  ? 

Largely  because  drinking  is  a  habit  with  him.  And  not  only 
does  the  mind  instinctively  repeat  an  action,  but,  in  the  case  of 
drink,  a  physical  craving  is  set  up,  and  the  brain  is  weakened. 
It  is  easier  to  refuse  the  first  glass  than  the  second;  easier  to 
refuse  the  second  than  the  third;  and  it  is  very  much  harder  for 
a  man  to  keep  sober  who  has  frequently  got  drunk. 

So,  when  poor  Williams  has  to  make  his  choice,  he  has  habit 
against  him,  he  has  a  physical  craving  against  him,  and  he  has  a 
weakened  brain  to  think  with. 

116 


FREE  WILL 

"But  Williams  could  have  refused  the  first  glass." 
No.  Because  in  his  case  the  desire  to  drink,  or  to  please  a 
friend,  was  stronger  than  his  fear  of  the  danger.  Or  he  may  not 
have  been  so  conscious  of  the  danger  as  Robinson  was.  He  may 
not  have  been  so  well  taught,  or  he  may  not  have  been  so  sensible, 
or  he  may  not  have  been  so  cautious.  So  that  his  heredity  and 
environment,  his  temperament  and  training,  led  him  to  take  the 
drink,  as  surely  as  Robinson's  heredity  and  environment  led  him 
to  refuse  it. 

And  now,  it  is  my  turn  to  ask  a  question.  If  the  will  is  "free," 
if  conscience  is  a  sure  guide,  how  is  it  that  the  free  will  and  the 
conscience  of  Robinson  caused  him  to  keep  sober,  while  the  free 
will  and  the  conscience  of  Williams  caused  him  to  get  drunk? 

Robinson's  will  was  curbed  by  certain  feelings  which  failed  to 
curb  the  will  of  Williams.  Because  in  the  case  of  Williams  the 
feelings  were  stronger  on  the  other  side. 

It  was  the  nature  and  the  training  of  Robinson  which  made  him 
refuse  the  second  glass,  and  it  was  the  natu*  e  and  the  training 
of  Williams  which  made  him  drink  the  second  glass. 
What  had  free  will  to  do  with  it? 

We  are  told  that  every  man  has  a  free  will,  and  a  conscience. 
Now,  if  Williams  had  been  Robinson,  that  is  to  say  if  his 
heredity  and  his  environment  had  been  exactly  like  Robinson's, 
he  would  have  done  exactly  as  Robinson  did. 

It  was  because  his  heredity  and  environment  were  not  the  same 
that  his  act  was  not  the  same. 

Both  men  had  free  wills.  What  made  one  do  what  the  other 
refused  to  do? 

Heredity  and  environment.  To  reverse  their  conduct  we  should 
have  to  reverse  their  heredity  and  environment. 

Let  us  take  another  familiar  instance.  Bill  Hicks  is  a  loafer. 
He  "doesn't  like  work."  He  used  to  work,  but  he  was  out  on 
strike  for  six  months,  and  since  then  he  has  done  no  more  work 
than  he  could  help.  What  has  changed  this  man's  free  will  to 
work  into  a  free  will  to  avoid  work? 

Hicks  used  to  work.  He  was  a  steady  young  fellow.  Why  did 
he  work  ?  He  did  not  know.  He  had  always  worked.  He  went 
to  work  just  as  he  ate  his  dinner,  or  washed  his  hands.  But  he 
did  not  think  much.  He  lived  chiefly  by  custom ;  habit.  He  did 
things  because  he  had  always  done  them,  and  because  other  men 
did  them.  He  knew  no  other  way. 

He  worked.  He  worked  hard :  for  nine  hours  a  day.  He  got 
twenty-five  shillings  a  week.  He  paid  twelve  shillings  for  lodg- 

117 


NOT  GUILTY 

ing  and  board,  and  he  spent  the  rest,  as  others  spent  it,  on  similar 
boots  and  coats,  and  a  better  suit,  and  the  usual  amount  of  beer 
and  tobacco,  and  the  usual  music  hall. 

He  thought  those  things  were  necessary,  or  rather  he  felt  that 
they  were. 

He  did  not  love  his  work.  There  was  no  interest  in  it.  It  was 
hard,  it  was  dirty,  there  was  no  credit  to  be  got  by  doing  it.  It 
was  just  an  affair  of  habit — and  wages. 

Then  he  was  half  a  year  on  strike.  He  had  less  food,  and  less 
beer,  and  no  music  hall.  But  he  had  a  very  great  deal  less  work, 
and  more  liberty,  and — no  "boss." 

Men  love  liberty.  It  is  a  love  that  is  bred  in  the  race.  They 
do  not  love  shovelling  clay  into  a  barrow,  and  pushing  the  bar- 
row up  a  plank.  There  is  nothing  in  it  that  appeals  to  their 
humanity:  and  it  is  dirty,  and  laborious,  and  it  makes  a  man  a 
prisoner  and  a  slave. 

Hicks  found  that  the  difference  between  working  and  loafing 
was  a  difference  of  food,  clothing,  and  beer,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
on  the  other  hand,  of  unpleasant  and  hard  labour. 

He  found  he  could  do  with  much  less  beer  and  beef,  and  that 
liberty  was  sweet.  He  did  not  think  this  out.  He  seldom  thought : 
he  was  never  trained  to  think.  But  the  habit  of  toil  was  broken, 
and  the  habit  of  freedom  was  formed.  Also  he  had  found  out 
that  he  could  live  without  so  much  toil,  and  live  more  pleasantly, 
if  more  sparely. 

What  had  changed  the  free  will  of  Hicks  from  a  will  to  work 
to  a  will  to  loaf  ?  Change  of  experience :  change  of  environment. 

Now  Hicks  is  as  lazy,  as  useless,  and  as  free  as  a  duke. 

But,  someone  asks,  "where  was  his  pride ;  where  was  his  sense 
of  duty;  where  was  his  manhood?"  And  it  seems  to  me  those 
questions  ought  to  be  put  to  the  duke.  But  I  should  say  that  Bill 
Hicks'  pride  and  sense  of  duty  were  just  overpowered  by  his  love 
of  liberty,  his  distaste  for  soulless  toil,  and  his  forgetfulness  of 
the  beautiful  moral  lesson  that  a  man  who  will  not  work  like  a 
horse  for  a  pound  a  week  is  a  lazy  beast,  whilst  the  man  who  does 
nothing — except  harm — for  a  hundred  thousand  a  year,  is  an  hon- 
ourable gentleman,  with  a  hereditary  seat  in  the  House  of  Peers. 

In  fact  Hicks  had  found  his  heredity  too  strong  for  his  "train- 
ing. But  what  had  free  will  to  do  with  it? 

The  duke  has  a  free  will.  Does  it  ever  set  him  wheeling  clay 
up  a  plank  ?  No.  Why  not  ?  Because,  as  in  the  case  of  Hicks, 
heredity  and  environment  cause  the  duke  to  love  some  other 
things  better  than  toil. 

118 


FEEE  WILL 

"But  the  duke  has  no  need  to  work."  That  is  how  Hicks  feels. 
"But  Hicks  could  work  if  he  liked."  So  could  the  duke.  But 
neither  of  these  men  can  "like."  That  is  just  what  is  the  matter 
with  them  both. 

Two  boys  work  at  a  hard  and  disagreeable  trade.  One  leaves 
it,  finds  other  work,  "gets  on,"  is  praised  for  getting  on.  The 
other  stays  at  the  trade  all  his  life,  works  hard  all  his  life,  is  poor 
all  his  life,  and  is  respected  as  an  honest  and  humble  working 
man ;  that  is  to  say,  he  is  regarded  by  society  as  Mr.  Dorgan  was 
regarded  by  Mr.  Dooley — "he  is  a  fine  man,  and  I  despise  him." 

What  causes  these  two  free  wills  to  will  so  differently?  One 
boy  knew  more  than  the  other  boy.  He  "knew  better."  All 
knowledge  is  environment.  Both  boys  had  free  wills.  It  was 
in  knowledge  they  differed :  environment ! 

Those  who  exalt  the  power  of  the  will,  and  belittle  the  power 
of  environment,  belie  their  words  by  their  deeds. 

For  they  would  not  send  their  children  amongst  bad  compan- 
ions or  allow  them  to  read  bad  books.  They  would  not  say  the 
children  have  free  will  and  therefore  have  power  to  take  the  good 
and  leave  the  bad. 

They  know  very  well  that  evil  environment  has  power  to  per- 
vert the  will,  and  that  good  environment  has  power  to  direct  it 
properly. 

They  know  that  children  may  be  made  good  or  bad  by  good 
or  evil  training,  and  that  the  will  follows  the  training. 

That  being  so,  they  must  also  admit  that  the  children  of  other 
people  may  be  made  good  or  bad  by  training. 

And  if  a  child  gets  bad  training,  how  can  free  will  save  it  ?  Or 
how  can  it  be  blamed  for  being  bad  ?  It  never  had  a  chance  to  be 
good.  That  they  know  this  is  proved  by  their  carefulness  in 
providing  their  own  children  with  better  environment. 

As  I  have  said  before,  every  church,  every  school,  every  moral 
lesson  is  a  proof  that  preachers  and  teachers  trust  to  good  envi- 
ronment, and  not  to  free  will,  to  make  children  good. 

In  this,  as  in  so  many  other  matters,  actions  speak  louder  than 
words. 

That,  I  hope,  disentangles  the  many  knots  into  which  thousands 
of  learned  men  have  tied  the  simple  subject  of  free  will;  and 
disposes  of  the  claim  that  man  is  responsible  because  his  will  is 
free.  But  there  is  one  other  cause  of  error,  akin  to  the  subject, 
on  which  I  should  like  to  say  a  few  words. 

We  often  hear  it  said  that  a  man  is  to  blame  for  his  conduct 
because  "he  knows  better." 

119 


NOT  GUILTY 

It  is  true  that  men  do  wrong  when  they  know  better.  Macbeth 
"knew  better"  when  he  murdered  Duncan.  But  it  is  true,  also, 
that  we  often  think  a  man  "knows  better,"  when  he  does  not  know 
better. 

For  a  man  cannot  be  said  to  know  a  thing  until  he  believes  it. 
If  I  am  told  that  the  moon  is  made  of  green  cheese,  it  cannot  be 
said  that  I  know  it  to  be  made  of  green  cheese. 

Many  moralists  seem  to  confuse  the  words  "to  know"  with  the 
words  "to  hear." 

Jones  reads  novels  and  plays  opera  music  on  Sunday.  The 
Puritan  says  Jones  "knows  better,"  when  he  means  that  Jones  has 
been  told  that  it  is  wrong  to  do  those  things. 

But  Jones  does  not  know  that  it  is  wrong.  He  has  heard  some- 
one say  that  it  is  wrong,  but  does  not  believe  it.  Therefore  it  is 
not  correct  to  say  that  he  knows  it. 

And,  again,  as  to  that  matter  of  belief.  Some  moralists  hold 
that  it  is  wicked  not  to  believe  certain  things,  and  that  men  who 
do  not  believe  those  things  will  be  punished. 

But  a  man  cannot  believe  a  thing  he  is  told  to  believe :  he  can 
only  believe  a  thing  which  he  can  believe ;  and  he  can  only  believe 
that  which  his  own  reason  tells  him  is  true. 

It  would  be  no  use  asking  Sir  Roger  Ball  to  believe  that  the 
earth  is  flat.  He  could  not  believe  it. 

It  is  no  use  asking  an  agnostic  to  believe  the  story  of  Jonah  and 
the  whale.  He  could  not  believe  it.  He  might  pretend  to  believe 
it.  He  might  try  to  believe  it.  But  his  reason  would  not  allow 
him  to  believe  it. 

Therefore  it  is  a  mistake  to  say  that  a  man  "knows  better," 
when  the  fact  is  that  he  has  been  told  "better"  and  cannot  believe 
what  he  has  been  told. 

That  is  a  simple  matter,  and  looks  quite  trivial ;  but  how  much 
ill-will,  how  much  intolerance,  how  much  violence,  persecution, 
and  murder  have  been  caused  by  the  strange  idea  that  a  man  is 
wicked  because  his  reason  cannot  believe  that  which  to  another 
man's  reason  seems  quite  true. 

Free  will  has  no  power  over  a  man's  belief.  A  man  cannot  be- 
lieve by  will,  but  only  by  conviction.  A  man  cannot  be  forced  to 
believe.  You  may  threaten  him,  wound  him,  beat  him,  burn  him ; 
and  he  may  be  frightened,  or  angered,  or  pained ;  but  he  cannot 
believe,  nor  can  he  be  made  to  believe.  Until  he  is  convinced. 

Now,  truism  as  it  may  seem,  I  think  it  necessary  to  say  here 
that  a  man  cannot  be  convinced  by  abuse,  nor  by  punishment.  He 
can  only  be  convinced  by  reason. 

120 


FEEE  WILL 

Yes.  If  we  wish  a  man  to  believe  a  thing,  we  shall  find  a  few 
words  of  reason  more  powerful  than  a  million  curses,  or  a  million 
bayonets.  To  burn  a  man  alive  for  failing  to  believe  that  the  sun 
goes  round  the  world  is  not  to  convince  him.  The  fire  is  search- 
ing, but  it  does  not  seem  to  him  to  be  relevant  to  the  issue.  He 
never  doubted  that  fire  would  burn ;  but  perchance  his  dying  eyes 
may  see  the  sun  sinking  down  into  the  west,  as  the  world  rolls 
on  its  axis.  He  dies  in  his  belief.  And  knows  no  "better." 


CHAPTER  ELEVEN 
SELF-CONTROL 


THE  subject  of  self-control  is  another  simple  matter 
which  has  been  made  difficult  by  slovenly  thinkers. 
When  we  say  that  the  will  is  not  free,  and  that  men 
are  made  by  heredity  and  environment,  we  are  met  with 
the  astonishing  objection  that  if  such  were  the  case  there  could 
be  no  such  things  as  progress  or  morality. 

When  we  ask  why,  we  are  told  that  if  a  man  is  the  creature  of 
heredity  and  environment  it  is  no  use  his  making  any  effort: 
what  is  to  be,  will  be. 

But  a  man  makes  efforts  because  he  wants  something;  and 
whether  he  be  a  "free  agent,"  or  a  "creature  of  heredity  and  en- 
vironment," he  will  continue  to  want  things,  and  so  he  will  con- 
tinue to  make  efforts  to  get  them. 

"But,"  say  the  believers  in  free  will,  "the  fact  that  he  tries  to 
get  things  shows  that  his  will  is  free." 

Not  at  all.  The  fact  is  that  heredity  and  environment  compel 
him  to  want  things,  and  compel  him  to  try  for  them. 

The  earth  does  not  move  of  its  own  free  will ;  but  it  moves.  The 
earth  is  controlled  by  two  forces:  one  is  centrifugal  force,  the 
other  is  the  force  of  gravity.  Those  two  forces  compel  it  to 
move,  and  to  move  in  a  certain  path,  or  orbit. 

"But  a  man  does  not  move  in  a  regular  path  or  orbit."  Neither 
does  the  earth.  For  every  planet  draws  it  more  or  less  out  of 
its  true  course.  And  so  it  is  with  man:  each  influence  in  his 
environment  affects  him  in  some  way. 

In  every  case  the  force  of  heredity  compels  us  to  move,  and  the 
force  of  environment  controls  or  changes  our  movements. 

And  as  this  is  a  subject  of  great  importance,  and  one  upon 
which  there  is  much  confusion  of  thought,  I  shall  ask  my  readers 
to  give  me  their  best  attention,  so  that  we  may  make  it  thor- 
oughly clear  and  plain. 

The  control  of  man  by  heredity  and  environment  is  not  the  end 
of  all  effort ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  beginning  of  all  effort. 

122 


SELF-CONTROL 

We  do  not  say  that  the  control  of  the  earth  by  gravity  and 
centrifugal  force  is  the  end  of  its  motion :  we  know  that  it  is  the 
cause  of  its  motion. 

But,  we  shall  be  told,  "the  earth  cannot  resist.  It  is  compelled 
to  act.  Man  is  free." 

Man  is  not  free.  Man  is  compelled  to  act.  Directly  a  child  is 
born  it  begins  to  act.  From  that  instant  until  the  end  of  its  life, 
it  continues  to  act.  It  must  act.  It  cannot  cease  from  action. 
The  force  of  heredity  compels  it  to  act. 

And  the  nature  of  its  actions  is  decided : 

1.  By  the  nature  of  the  individual :  which  is  his  heredity. 

2.  By  his  experiences  and  training :  which  are  his  environment. 
Therefore  to  cease  from  all  action  is  impossible.    Therefore  it 

is  nonsense  to  say  that  if  we  are  creatures  of  heredity  and  envi- 
ronment we  shall  cease  to  act. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  a  man  can  cease  from  action :  he  has  power 
to  kill  himself. 

Well :  the  earth  has  power  to  destroy  itself  if  it  is  caused  to 
destroy  itself.  And  man  cannot  destroy  himself  unless  he  is 
caused  to  destroy  himself. 

For  the  nature  of  a  man — through  heredity — is  to  love  life.  No 
man  destroys  himself  without  a  cause.  He  may  go  mad,  he  may 
be  in  great  grief,  he  may  be  disappointed,  jealous,  angry.  But 
there  is  always  a  cause  when  a  man  takes  his  own  life.  And,  be 
the  cause  what  it  may,  it  belongs  to  environment.  So  that  a  man 
cannot  even  take  his  own  life  until  heredity  and  environment 
cause  him  to  do  it. 

But  there  is  a  second  argument,  to  the  effect  that  if  we  believe 
ourselves  to  be  creatures  of  heredity  and  environment  we  shall 
cease  to  make  any  effort  to  be  good,  or  to  be  better  than  we  are. 

Those  who  use  such  an  argument  do  not  understand  the  nature 
and  power  of  environment.  Environment  is  powerful  for  good 
as  well  as  for  evil. 

Well.  We  have  seen  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  cease  to  act. 
Now  we  are  told  that  we  shall  cease  to  act  well. 

But  our  acting  well  or  ill  depends  upon  the  nature  of  our 
heredity  and  environment. 

If  our  heredity  be  good,  and  if  our  environment  be  good,  we 
must  act  well :  we  cannot  help  it. 

If  our  heredity  be  bad,  and  if  our  environment  be  bad,  we  must 
act  ill :  we  cannot  help  it. 

What  ?    Do  you  mean  to  say  I  cannot  be  good  if  I  try  ?" 

Is  it  not  evident  that  you  must  have  some  good  in  you  if  you 

123 


NOT  GUILTY 

wish  to  try  ?    That  good  is  put  there  by  heredity  and  environment. 

"But  even  a  bad  man  sometimes  tries  to  be  good." 

That  is  slovenly  thinking.  A  man  who  is  all  bad  has  no  desire 
for  good.  Any  man  who  has  a  desire  for  good  is  not  all  bad. 

Therefore  a  man  who  is  "bad"  never  tries  to  be  good,  and  a 
man  who  tries  to  be  good  is  not  "bad."  When  it  is  said  that  a 
bad  man  tries  to  be  good  the  idea  is  that  a  very  imperfect  man 
tries  to  be  rather  better. 

And  he  tries  to  be  rather  better  because  heredity  or  environ- 
ment causes  him  to  wish  to  be  rather  better. 

Before  a  man  can  wish  to  be  good  he  must  know  what  goodness 
is.  All  men  are  born  destitute  of  knowledge.  To  know  what 
goodness  is  he  must  learn.  All  learning  is  environment. 

But  when  a  man  knows  what  is  good,  and  wishes  to  be  good, 
he  will  try  to  be  good.  He  cannot  help  trying.  And  he  will  try 
just  as  hard,  and  just  as  long  as  his  temperament  and  training 
cause  him  to  try;  and  he  will  succeed  in  being  just  as  good  as  his 
temperament  and  training  cause  him  to  be.  And  his  temperament 
is  heredity,  and  his  training  is  environment. 

It  does  not  follow,  then,  that  because  a  man  is  that  which  he- 
redity and  environment  make  him,  he  will  be  nothing,  for  they 
will  make  him  something.  It  does  not  follow  that  he  will  be  bad, 
for  they  will  make  him  good  or  bad,  as  they  are  good  or  bad. 

"Then,"  exclaims  the  confused  opponent,  "the  man  himself 
counts  for  nothing:  he  is  a  mere  machine." 

No.  He  is  not  a  "mere  machine" :  he  is  a  mere  man ;  and  he 
counts  for  just  as  much  as  his  heredity  and  environment  amount 
to,  for  his  heredity  and  environment  are  he. 

"But  to  tell  a  youth  that  he  is  a  creature  of  heredity  and  en- 
vironment would  discourage  him."  Not  if  he  understood  what 
was  meant.  As  we  want  to  get  this  subject  perfectly  clear  let  us 
put  a  speech  in  two  ways. 

A  youth  tells  his  father  that  he  would  like  to  be  a  painter.  The 
father's  reply  may  be  varied  as  follows.  First,  let  us  suppose  the 
father  says : 

"You  will  be  just  as  good  a  painter  as  your  heredity  and  en- 
vironment allow,  or  compel  you  to  be. 

•"If  you  have  any  hereditary  talent  for  the  art,  so  much  the  bet- 
ter. But  painting  requires  someihing  more  than  talent:  it  re- 
quires knowledge,  and  practice.  The  more  knowledge  and  prac- 
tice you  get  the  better  you  will  paint.  The  less  hereditary  talent 
you  possess,  the  more  knowledge  and  practice  you  will  need. 
Therefore,  if  you  want  to  be  a  good  painter,  you  must  work  hard." 

124 


SELF-CONTKOL 

The  second  speech  would  leave  out  the  word  hereditary  before 
the  word  talent,  and  would  begin,  "You  will  be  just  as  a  good  a 
painter  as  your  talent  and  industry  will  make  you."  Otherwise 
the  speeches  would  not  differ. 

But  are  we  to  suppose  that  the  first  speech  would  discourage  a 
boy  who  wanted  to  be  a  painter?  Not  at  all:  if  the  boy  under- 
stood what  heredity  and  environment  mean.  It  tells  him  that  he 
can  only  be  as  good  a  painter  as  his  talent  and  his  industry  will 
make  him.  But  it  does  not  tell  him  what  are  the  limits  of  his  in- 
dustry and  talent,  for  nobody  knows  what  the  limits  are.  That 
can  only  be  settled  by  trying. 

To  know  that  he  cannot  get  more  out  of  a  gold  reef  than  there 
is  in  it,  does  not  discourage  a  miner.  What  he  wants  is  to  get 
all  there  is  in  it,  and  until  he  wants  no  more,  or  believes  there  is 
no  more,  he  will  keep  on  digging. 

It  is  so  with  any  human  effort.  We  all  know  that  we  cannot  do 
more  than  we  can,  whether  we  believe  in  free  will  or  no.  But  we 
do  not  know  how  much  we  can  do,  and  nobody  can  tell  us.  The 
only  way  is  to  try.  And  we  try  just  as  hard  as  our  nature  and  our 
desire  impel  us  to  try,  and  just  as  long  as  any  desire  or  any  hope 
remains. 

Not  only  that,  we  commonly  try  when  the  limit  of  our  attain- 
ment is  in  sight.  For  we  try  to  get  as  near  the  limit  as  we  can. 

For  instance.  A  young  man  adopts  literature  as  his  trade. 
He  knows  that  before  he  dips  a  pen  into  a  bottle  that  he  will  never 
reach  the  level  of  Shakespeare  and  Homer.  But  he  tries  to  do  as 
well  as  he  can.  A  miner  might  be  sure  that  his  reef  would  not 
yield  a  million ;  but  he  would  go  on  and  get  all  he  could. 

So  it  is  in  the  case  of  a  desire  for  virtue.  A  man  knows  .hat 
he  cannot  be  better  than  his  nature  and  his  knowledge  allow  him 
to  be.  He  knows  that  he  will  never  be  as  good  as  the  best.  But 
he  wants  to  be  good,  and  he  tries  to  be  as  good  as  he  can.  The 
fact  that  a  private  soldier  is  not  likely  to  get  a  commission  does 
not  prevent  him  from  trying  to  get  a  sergeant-major's  stripes. 
The  knowledge  that  he  is  not  likely  to  get  twenty-one  bull's-eyes 
in  a  match  does  not  prevent  a  rifleman  from  getting  all  the  bull's- 
eyes  he  can. 

So  with  our  young  painter.  All  desire  is  hereditary.  All  knowl- 
edge is  environment.  The  boy  wants  to  be  a  painter,  and  he 
knows  that  industry  and  practice  will  help  to  make  him  a  good 
painter.  Therefore  he  tries.  He  tries  just  as  hard  as  his  desire 
(his  heredity)  and  the  encouragements  of  his  master  and  his 
friends  (environment)  cause  him  to  try. 

125 


NOT  GUILTY 

We  do  not  say  that  it  is  no  use  trying  to  be  good,  no  use  trying 
to  be  clever.  On  the  contrary,  we  say  that  no  man  can  be  good 
or  clever  unless  he  does  try ;  but  that  his  desire  to  try,  his  power 
to  try,  and  his  knowledge  of  the  value  of  trying  are  parts  of  his 
heredity  and  environment. 

A  boy  says,  "I  cannot  do  this  sum."  His  friend  says,  "Try 
again.  I  had  to  try  six  times ;  but  I  did  it."  That  encouragement 
is  environment. 

A  man  says,  "I  cannot  keep  steady.  I  have  tried."  His  friend 
says,  "Yes,  you  can.  Try  again.  Keep  on  trying.  Try  for  your 
children's  sake."  That  speech  is  environment. 

We  advise  a  weakly  lad  to  try  a  course  of  gymnastics,  and  en- 
courage him  to  persevere.  That  is  environment. 

In  another  book  of  mine,  "God  and  My  Neighbour,"  I  said 
something  that  was  pounced  upon  as  inconsistent  with  my  belief. 
One  paper  asked  what  I  would  give  to  "cancel  that  fatal  admis- 
sion." Many  critics  said  in  their  haste  that  I  had  "given  my  case 
away." 

But  I  am  so  far  from  regretting  that  paragraph  that  I  will  re- 
peat it  here,  and  will  prove  that  it  is  not  inconsistent  with  my 
belief,  and  that  it  does  not  "give  my  case  away."  The  passage  is 
as  follows: 

I  believe  that  I  am  what  heredity  and  environment  made  me. 
But  I  know  that  I  can  make  myself  better  or  worse  if  I  try.  I 
know  that  because  I  have  learnt  it,  and  the  learning  has  been 
part  of  my  environment. 

What  is  there  in  that  paragraph  that  is  inconsistent  with  my 
belief? 

"I  know" — how  do  I  know  anything?  All  knowledge  is  from 
environment.  "I  know"  (through  environment)  that  I  can  do 
something  "if  I  try." 

What  causes  me  to  try?  If  I  try  to  write  better,  or  to  live  bet- 
ter, it  is  evident  that  I  wish  to  write  better,  or  to  live  better. 
What  makes  me  wish?  Heredity  and  environment. 

It  may  be  inherited  disposition  to  do  the  things  called  good. 
It  may  be  love  of  approbation.  Those  are  parts  of  my  heredity. 

It  may  be  that  I  wish  to  do  the  things  called  good  because  I 
have  been  taught  that  I  ought  to  do  them.  That  teaching  would 
be  part  of  my  environment. 

Therefore  the  desire  to  be  good,  or  better,  and  the  knowledge 

126 


SELF-CONTROL 

that  I  can  be  good,  or  better,  if  I  try,  arise  from  and  belong  to 
heredity  and  environment. 

"But  to  try.  Does  not  that  show  free  will  ?"  I  have  just  proved 
that  I  try  because  I  wish  to  succeed,  and  that  environment  has 
taught  me  that  I  cannot  succeed  without  trying. 

"But  does  not  the  free  will  come  in  when  I  decide  whether  to  do 
good  or  bad  things  ?"  No.  For  that  has  already  been  decided  for 
me  by  heredity  and  environment,  which  have  made  me  wish  to 
do  good  things. 

So  there  is  nothing  wrong  with  that  paragraph.  The  fault  was 
in  my  critics,  who  had  failed  to  understand  the  subject  upon 
which  they  were  trying  to  argue. 

A  man  can  only  try  if  heredity  or  environment  causes  him  to 
want  to  try,  and  he  can  only  keep  on  trying  as  long  as  heredity 
and  environment  cause  him  to  keep  on. 

One  man  is  born  with  more  talent  than  another.  And  one  man 
is  born  with  more  industry,  or  with  more  ambition,  or  with  more 
hope,  patience,  determination,  than  another. 

And  the  man  who  is  more  ambitious,  or  more  patient,  or  more 
hopeful,  or  more  determined,  will  try  harder,  and  will  try  longer 
than  the  man  who  is  less  ambitious,  or  hopeful,  or  determined. 

Heredity  settles  that. 

But  the  man  who  has  less  of  the  qualities  that  make  one  try, 
may  be  spurred  on  by  a  teacher,  a  friend,  or  a  powerful  motive, 
and  so  may  try  harder  and  longer  than  the  stronger  man. 

As,  for  example,  a  man  who  has  given  up  trying  to  succeed 
in  some  enterprise,  may  fall  in  love,  and  then  the  added  desire 
to  marry  the  woman  he  loves,  may  cause  him  to  try  harder  than 
ever,  and  may  lead  him  to  succeed. 

But  these  things  belong  to  his  environment. 

Not  only  that,  but  they  are  a  proof  that  environment  can  move 
a  man  when  free  will  fails.  For  the  man  has  a  free  will  before 
he  falls  in  love.  But  he  loses  heart,  and  does  not  succeed  in  his 
enterprise.  But  love,  which  is  environment,  supplies  a  new  de- 
sire, and  he  does  succed. 

Why  does  he  succeed?  Because  he  wants  to  marry,  and  he 
cannot  marry  until  he  succeeds.  This  desire  to  marry  comes 
of  environment,  and  it  rules  the  will,  and  compels  the  will  to  will 
a  further  effort.  Is  it  not  so  ? 

Although  we  say  that  man  is  the  creature  of  heredity  and  en- 
vironment, we  do  not  say  that  he  has  no  self-control.  We  only 
say  that  his  self-control  comes  from  heredity  and  environment, 
and  is  limited  and  controlled  by  heredity  and  environment. 

127 


NOT  GUILTY 

He  can  only  "do  as  he  likes"  when  heredity  and  environment 
cause  him  "to  like,"  and  he  can  only  "do  as  he  likes,"  so  far  and 
so  long  as  heredity  and  environment  enable  him  to  go  on. 

A  man  "can  be  good  if  he  tries,"  but  not  unless  heredity  and 
environment  cause  him  to  wish  to  try. 

But  for  heredity  he  could  not  lift  a  finger :  he  would  not  have 
a  finger  to  lift.  But  for  environment  he  could  not  learn  to  use 
a  finger.  He  could  never  know  good  from  bad. 

We  all  know  that  we  can  train  and  curb  ourselves,  that  we  can 
weed  out  bad  habits,  and  cultivate  good  habits.  No  one  has  any 
doubt  about  that.  The  question  is  what  causes  us  to  do  the  one 
or  the  other.  The  answer  is — heredity  and  environment. 

We  can  develop  our  muscles,  our  brains,  our  morals;  and  we 
can  develop  them  enormously. 

But  before  we  can  do  these  things  we  must  want  to  do  them, 
and  we  must  know  that  we  can  do  them,  and  how  to  do  them; 
and  all  knowledge,  and  all  desire  comes  from  environment  and 
heredity. 

A  youth  wishes  to  be  strong.  Why  ?  Say  he  has  been  reading 
Mr.  Sandow's  book.  He  is  told  there  that  by  doing  certain  exer- 
cises every  day  he  can  very  greatly  increase  his  strength.  This 
sets  him  to  work  at  the  dumb-bells.  There  may  be  many  motives 
impelling  him.  One  group  form  a  general  desire  to  be  strong: 
that  is  heredity.  But  the  spur  that  moves  him  is  Sandow's  book, 
and  that  spur,  and  the  information  as  to  how  to  proceed,  are  en- 
vironment. 

The  youth  begins,  and  for  a  few  months  he  does  the  exercises 
every  morning.  But  they  begin  to  get  irksome. 

He  is  tired,  he  has  a  slight  cold,  he  wants  to  read  or  write.  He 
neglects  the  exercises.  Then  he  remembers  that  he  cannot  get 
strong  unless  he  perseveres  and  does  the  work  regularly,  and  he 
goes  on  again.  Or  he  neglects  his  training  for  awhile,  until  he 
meets  another  youth  who  has  improved  himself.  Then  he  goes 
back  to  the  dumb-bells. 

Is  not  this,  to  our  own  knowledge,  the  kind  of  thing  that  hap- 
pens to  us  all,  in  all  kinds  of  self-training,  whether  it  be  muscular, 
mental,  or  moral  ? 

What  causes  the  fluctuations  ?  Let  the  reader  examine  his  own 
conduct,  and  he  will  find  a  continual  shifting  and  conflict  of  mo- 
tives. And  he  will  never  find  a  motive  that  cannot  be  traced  to 
his  temperament  or  training,  to  his  heredity  or  environment. 

A  man  wants  to  learn  French,  or  shorthand.  Let  him  ask  him- 
self why  he  wants  to  learn,  and  he  will  find  the  motive  springs 

128 


SELF-CONTROL 

from  temperament  or  training.  He  begins  to  learn.  He  finds  the 
work  difficult  and  irksome.  He  has  to  spur  himself  on  by  all 
kinds  of  expedients.  Finally  he  learns,  or  he  gives  up  trying  to 
learn ;  and  he  will  find  that  his  action  has  been  settled  by  a  contest 
between  his  desire  to  be  able  to  write  shorthand,  or  to  speak 
French,  and  his  dislike  to  the  drudgery  of  learning;  or  that  his 
action  has  been  settled  by  a  conflict  between  his  desire  to  know 
shorthand,  or  French,  and  his  desire  to  do  something  else.  He. 
does  the  thing  he  most  desires  to  do.  And  all  desire  comes  from 
heredity  or  from  environment. 

Every  member  of  his  body,  every  faculty,  every  impulse  is 
fixed  for  him  by  heredity ;  every  kind  of  knowledge,  every  kind 
of  encouragement  or  discouragement  comes  of  environment. 

I  hope  we  have  made  that  quite  clear,  and  now  we  may  ask  to 
what  it  leads  us. 

And  we  shall  find  that  it  leads  us  to  the  conclusion  that  every- 
thing a  man  does  is,  at  the  instant  when  he  does  it,  the  only  thing; 
he  can  do :  the  only  thing  he  can  do,  then. 

"What!  do  you  mean  to  say ?"  Yes.  It  is  startling.  But 

let  us  keep  our  heads  cool  and  our  eyes  wide  open,  and  we  shall 
find  that  it  is  quite  true,  and  that  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand. 


CHAPTER    TWELVE 
GUILTY  OR  NOT  GUILTY? 

WE  are  to  ask  whether  it  is  true  that  everything  a  man 
does  is  the  only  thing  he  could  do,  at  the  instant  of  his 
doing  it. 

This  is  a  very  important  question,  because  if  the 
answer  is  yes,  all  praise  and  all  blame  are  undeserved. 

All  praise  and  all  blame. 

Let  us  take  some  revolting  action  as  a  test. 

A  tramp  has  murdered  a  child  on  the  highway,  has  robbed  her 
of  a  few  coppers,  and  has  thrown  her  body  into  a  ditch. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  tramp  could  not  help  doing  that? 
Do  you  mean  to  say  he  is  not  to  blame  ?  Do  you  mean  to  say  he 
is  not  to  be  punished?" 

Yes.  I  say  all  those  things ;  and  if  all  those  things  are  not  true 
this  book  is  not  worth  the  paper  it  is  printed  on. 

Prove  it?  I  have  proved  it.  But  I  have  only  instanced  venial 
acts,  and  now  we  are  confronted  with  murder.  And  the  horror 
of  murder  drives  men  almost  to  frenzy,  so  that  they  cease  to 
think:  they  can  only  feel. 

Murder.  Yes,  a  brutal  murder.  It  comes  upon  us  with  a  sick- 
ening shock.  But  I  said  in  my  first  chapter  that  I  proposed  to 
defend  those  whom  God  and  man  condemn,  and  to  demand  jus- 
tice for  those  whom  God  and  man  have  wronged.  I  have  to  plead 
for  the  bottom  dog:  the  lowest,  the  most  detested,  the  worst. 

The  tramp  has  committed  a  murder.  Man  would  loathe  him, 
revile  him,  hang  him :  God  would  cast  him  into  outer  darkness. 

"Not,"  cries  the  pious  Christian,  "if  he  repent." 

I  make  a  note  of  the  repentance  and  pass  on. 

The  tramp  has  committed  a  murder.  It  was  a  cowardly  and 
cruel  murder,  and  the  motive  was  robbery. 

But  I  have  proved  that  all  motives  and  all  powers ;  all  knowl- 
edge and  capacity,  all  acts  and  all  words,  are  caused  by  heredity 
and  environment. 

I  have  proved  that  a  man  can  only  be  good  or  bad  as  heredity 
and  environment  cause  him  to  be  good  or  bad ;  and  I  have  proved 

130 


GUILTY  OR  NOT  GUILTY? 

these  things  because  I  have  to  claim  that  all  punishments  and  re- 
wards, all  praise  and  blame,  are  undeserved. 
And  now,  let  us  try  this  miserable  tramp — our  brother. 

Guilty  or  Not  Guilty? 

The  tramp  has  murdered  a  child  for  her  money.  What  is  his 
defence  ? 

I  appear  for  the  prisoner,  and  claim  that  he  is  not  responsible 
for  his  act. 

(Cries  of  shame!  bosh!  lynch  him!) 

I  will  first  of  all  remind  the  court  of  the  reasons  upon  which  I 
base  my  claim. 

(Gentleman  in  white  tie  rises  and  declaims  vehemently  against 
the  immorality  of  the  defence.  Talks  excitedly  about  the  flood 
gates  of  anarchy,  and  the  bulwarks  of  society,  and  is  with  diffi- 
culty persuaded  to  resume  his  seat. ) 

Clerical  environment  does  not  make  for  toleration  and  sweet 
reasonableness.  I  proceed  to  open  my  case. 

Every  quality  of  body  or  mind  possessed  by  a  child  at  birth 
has  been  handed  down  to  the  child  by  its  ancestors. 

The  child  could  not  select  its  ancestors ;  could  not  select  its  own 
qualities  of  body  and  mind. 

Therefore  the  child  is  not  to  blame  for  any  evil  quality  of  body 
or  mind  with  which  it  is  born. 

Therefore  this  tramp  was  not  to  blame  if,  at  the  moment  of 
birth,  his  nature  was  prone  to  violence  or  to  vice. 

The  prisoner  is  a  criminal.  He  is  either  a  criminal  born,  or  a 
criminal  made. 

If  he  is  a  "born  criminal"  he  is  a  victim  of  atavism,  and  ought 
not  to  be  blamed,  but  pitied.  For  it  is  not  a  fault,  but  a  misfor- 
tune, to  be  born  an  atavist. 

Had  a  tiger  killed  the  child,  we  should  have  to  admit  that  such 
is  the  tiger's  nature ;  as  it  is  the  nature  of  a  lark  to  sing. 

But,  if  the  prisoner  is  an  atavist  it  is  his  nature  to  be  furious 
and  cruel. 

We  cannot,  however,  be  sure  that  a  man  is  a  "born  criminal" 
because  he  commits  a  murder.  So  great  is  the  power  of  environ- 
ment for  evil,  as  well  as  for  good,  that  perhaps  the  most  innocent 
and  humane  man  in  this  court  might,  by  the  influence  of  an  evil 
environment,  have  been  made  capable  of  an  act  as  horrible. 

If  the  prosecution  adopt  the  course  I  expect  them  to  adopt,  and 
elaim  that  the  unfortunate  prisoner  "knew  better":  if  they  suc- 

131 


NOT  GUILTY 

ceed  in  proving  that  the  prisoner  was  well-educated,  carefully 
brought  up,  and  never  in  all  his  life  was  once  exposed  to  any  evil 
influence,  then  I  shall  claim  that  such  evidence  proves  the  prisoner 
to  be  atavist,  and  entitles  him  to  a  verdict  of  unsound  mind. 

Because  no  man  whose  whole  environment  had  been  good, 
would  be  capable  of  murdering  a  child  for  a  few  coppers,  unless 
he  were  an  atavist  or  insane. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  it  should  appear,  in  the  course  of 
evidence,  that  the  prisoner  was  born  of  criminal  and  ignorant 
parents,  was  brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  violence  and  crime, 
was  sent  out,  untaught,  or  evilly  taught,  and  undisciplined,  to 
scramble  for  a  living ;  if  it  should  be  proved  that  he  fell  into  bad 
company,  that  he  turned  thief,  that  he  was  sent  to  prison  and 
branded  as  a  felon :  if  it  should  be  proved  that  he  has  been  hunted 
by  the  police,  flogged  with  the  "cat"  by  warders,  bullied  by  coun- 
sel, denounced  by  magistrates  and  judges ;  if  it  should  be  proved 
that  he  has  been  treated  at  every  turn  of  his  wretched  career  as  a 
wild  beast  or  a  pariah;  if  it  should  be  proved  that  he  has  been 
allowed  to  degenerate  into  an  ignorant,  a  savage,  a  bestial  and  a 
drunken  loafer;  then,  I  shall  plead  that  this  miserable  man  has 
been  reduced  to  his  present  morose,  cruel,  and  immoral  state  by 
evil  environment ;  and  I  shall  ask  for  a  verdict  in  his  favour. 

(Cries  of  Monster!    Hang  him!    Lynch  him!) 

It  is  said  the  prisoner  is  an  inhuman  monster.  He  has  been 
made  a  monster  by  a  monstrous  heredity ;  or  he  has  been  made  a 
monster  by  a  monstrous  environment. 

No  man  of  sound  heredity  ever  becomes  a  monster  save  by  the 
action  of  an  evil  environment. 

Say  the  prisoner  is  an  atavist ;  a  man  bred  back  to  the  beasts. 
Then  he  is  entitled  to  be  judged  by  the  standard  we  apply  to 
beasts. 

Some  of  you  will  remember  Foe's  story  of  the  murder  in  the 
Rue  Morgue,  in  which  a  terrible  murder  is  done  by  an  ape.  In 
such  a  case  our  horror  and  our  anger  would  probably  cause  us 
to  shoot  the  ape.  But  that  would  be  the  uprising  within  us  of 
our  own  atavistic  and  brutish  passions ;  it  would  not  be  the  result 
of  our  promptings  of  our  human  reason.  Reason  might  prompt 
us  to  kill  the  ape  as  a  precaution  against  a  repetition  of  violence. 
But  anger  and  hate  are  not  reasonable,  not  human :  all  anger  and 
all  hate  are  bestial — like  the  hate  and  the  anger  of  the  tramp. 

But  if  the  prisoner  is  not  an  atavist,  or  brute-man,  if  he  has 
been  reduced  to  his  present  moral  state  of  environment,  I  shall 
ask  for  some  measure  of  compensation  from  the  society  whose 

132 


GUILTY  OK  NOT  GUILTY? 

unjust  laws,  and  dishonest  social  conditions,  and  immoral  neglect 
are  responsible  for  the  fact  that  a  brother  man  has  been  allowed, 
or  rather  compelled,  by  society,  to  grow  up  an  ignorant  and  des- 
perate savage. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  the  prisoner  is  a  creature  of  heredity  and  en- 
vironment; and,  as  he  is  bad,  the  heredity,  or  the  environment, 
or  both,  must  be  bad.  And  I  ask  for  a  verdict  in  the  prisoner's 
favour. 

Will  any  man  on  the  jury  say  me  nay?  The  prisoner  has  defied 
the  law,  he  has  injured  society,  has  outraged  morality.  Have  law 
and  morality  not  injured  him?  Has  society  not  injured  him? 

He  has  committed  a  terrible  crime,  for  which  it  is  claimed  that 
he  should  be  punished.  Who  shall  be  punished  for  the  crimes  of 
the  law  and  of  society  against  him  ? 

There  is  much  proper  and  natural  sympathy  expressed  by  the 
prosecution  with  the  parents  of  the  murdered  child.  Is  there  no 
sympathy  with  this  unhappy  victim  of  atavism,  or  of  society? 
This  prisoner  has  been  bred  as  a  beast,  or  treated  as  a  savage, 
until  he  has  become  a  savage  and  a  beast. 

Here  stands  a  human  being,  poisoned,  battered,  and  degraded 
beyond  all  human  semblance.  Here  stands  a  brother  man,  whose 
soul  has  been  murdered  by  inches,  has  been  murdered  by  the  so- 
ciety that  now  hales  him  here  to  be  denounced,  and  execrated, 
and  hanged. 

Do  I  speak  truth,  or  falsehood?  Is  logic  true?  Are  facts 
true?  That  which  society  has  here  planted  it  has  here  to  reap. 
Not  all  the  law,  the  piety,  and  education  in  the  wide,  wide  earth 
can  make  this  ruined  and  degraded  prisoner  the  man  he  might 
have  been.  Not  all  the  repentance  we  can  feel,  not  any  compen- 
sation we  can  offer  can  buy  him  back  the  soul  we  have  destroyed. 
It  is  too  late. 

Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  is  it  nothing  to  you?  You  are  acces- 
sories to  the  fact.  I  appeal  to  your  justice,  to  your  pity 

(A  voice :    How  much  pity  had  he  for  the  child?) 

None.  There  is  no  pity  in  his  soul.  Either  his  forefathers  put 
none  there,  or  society  has  destroyed  it. 

(Cries  of  monstrous !  immoral !  preposterous  !  shame !) 

I  hear  cries  of  monstrous  and  immoral.  But  I  do  not  hear  any 
voice  say  "false."  Is  there  a  man  in  court  can  impeach  my  rea- 
soning, or  disprove  my  facts?  Is  there  a  man  in  court  can  deny 
one  statement  I  have  made?  Is  there  a  man  in  court  can  break 
one  link  of  the  steel  chain  of  logic  I  have  riveted  upon  our  meta- 
physicians, our  moralists,  our  kings,  our  judges,  and  our  gods? 

133 


GUILT r 

You  say  my  defence  is  unreasonable  and  immoral.  You  dread 
the  effects  of  justice  and  of  reason  upon  society.  You  talk  of 
crime  and  cruelty,  of  law  and  order.  You  want  the  prisoner  pun- 
ished. You  ask  for  justice:  but  you  want  revenge.  Give  me  a 
fair  hearing,  and  I  will  speak  of  these  things  to  you. 

When  you  cry  out  that  to  deny  responsibility  is  immoral  you 
are  thinking,  at  the  back  of  your  heads,  that  men  can  only  be  kept 
within  the  law  by  fear;  that  wrong-doing  can  only  be  repressed  by 
punishment. 

It  is  the  old  and  cruel  conventions  of  society  that  hold  you 
fast  to  the  error  that  blame  and  punishment  are  righteous  and 
salutary.  It  is  ignorance  of  human  nature  that  betrays  you  into 
the  belief  that  men  can  be  made  honest  and  benevolent  by  cruelty 
and  terror. 

Punishment  has  never  been  just,  has  never  been  effectual. 
Punishment  has  always  failed  of  its  purpose :  the  greater  its  seve- 
rity, the  more  abject  its  failure. 

Men  cannot  be  made  good  and  gentle  by  means  of  violence  and 
wrong.  The  real  tamers  and  purifiers  of  human  hearts  are  love 
and  charity  and  reason. 

You  seem  to  think  it  is  a  noble  thing  to  be  angry  with  a  crimi- 
nal, and  to  be  angry  with  me  for  defending  him.  But  it  is  always 
ignoble  to  be  angry. 

Some  of  you  deny  this  blood-stained  murderer  for  your 
brother;  but  directly  your  features  are  distorted  by  passion,  di- 
rectly your  fury  overcomes  your  reason,  directly  you  begin  to 
shriek  for  his  blood,  your  close  relationship  to  him  appears. 

Reason,  patience,  self-control,  these  are  lacking  in  the  savage 
criminal :  I  look  around  for  them  in  vain  amongst  the  crowd  in 
this  court. 

I  said  that  I  would  take  note  of  what  our  Christian  friend  said 
about  repentance.  I  will  speak  to  that  question  now.  There  are 
few  who  so  often  forget  the  tenets  of  their  own  religion  as  the 
clergy.  I  have  found  it  so. 

The  clergy  are  always  amongst  the  first  to  raise  the  cry  of 
immorality  when  one  speaks  against  punishment  as  unjust,  or 
useless. 

Yet  the  clergy  preach  the  doctrine  of  repentance.  It  is  only  a 
few  weeks  since  the  English  papers  printed  a  letter  from  a  mur- 
derer under  sentence  of  death,  in  which  he  spoke  of  meeting  his 
relatives  "at  the  feet  of  Jesus." 

In  a  week  from  the  date  of  his  letter  he  expected  to  be  in 
heaven.  In  a  month  from  the  time  when  he  murdered  his  wife, 

134 


GUILTY  OR  NOT  GUILTY? 

he  expected  to  be  with  Jesus,  and  to  live  in  happiness  and  glory 
for  ever. 

That  is  what  the  prison  chaplain  had  taught  him.  It  is  what 
the  clergy  do  teach.  They  talk  of  the  folly  and  the  immorality 
of  abolishing  prison  and  gallows ;  and  then  they  offer  the  perpe- 
trators of  the  most  inhuman  and  terrible  crimes  a  certainty  of 
everlasting  bliss  in  a  sinless  heaven. 

If  it  is  immoral  and  absurd  to  say  that  all  criminals  are  sinned 
against  as  well  as  sinning;  if  it  is  immoral  and  absurd  to  say  that 
we  ought  not  to  hang  a  man,  nor  to  flog,  nor  to  imprison  him, 
what  kind  of  morality  and  wisdom  lie  in  offering  all  criminals  an 
eternity  of  happiness  and  glory? 

The  clergy  are  that  which  their  environment  has  made  them. 
What  kind  of  reasoning  can  we  expect  from  men  who  have  been 
taught  that  it  is  wicked  to  think  ? 

Before  you  are  angry  with  me  for  defending  the  prisoner  be 
sure  that  you  are  not  confounding  the  ideas  of  the  criminal  and 
the  crime.  I  hate  the  crime  as  much  as  any  man  here ;  but  I  do 
not  hate  the  criminal.  I  am  not  defending  evil ;  I  am  defending 
the  evil-doer. 

Before  you  plume  yourselves  too  much  upon  your  superior 
morality  and  greater  love  of  justice,  allow  me  to  remind  you  that 
I  am  asking  that  the  world  shall  be  moral,  and  not  only  this  man : 
I  am  demanding  justice  for  all  men,  and  not  for  a  few.  But  you 
— you  think  you  have  acted  righteously  and  honourably  when  you 
have  hanged  a  murderer ;  but  you  have  not  a  thought  for  the  inhu- 
man social  conditions  that  make  men  criminals.  This  prisoner  is 
but  a  type :  a  type  of  the  legion  victims  of  a  selfish  and  cowardly 
society.  Every  day,  in  every  city,  in  every  country,  innocent  chil- 
dren are  being  poisoned  and  perverted  by  millions.  Which  of  you 
has  spoken  a  word  or  lifted  a  hand  to  prevent  this  wholesale 
wrong?  What  man  of  you  all,  who  are  so  fierce  against  crime, 
so  loud  in  praise  of  morality,  has  ever  tried  in  act  or  speech  to 
combat  the  crime  and  the  immorality  which  society  perpetuates : 
with  your  knowledge  and  consent?  You  who  are  so  anxious  to 
punish  crime,  what  are  you  doing  to  prevent  it  ? 

When  I  ask  for  a  verdict  in  the  prisoner's  favour  you  assume 
that  I  would  set  him  free,  assuring  him  that  he  is  an  injured  man 
and  that  fate  compelled  him  to  the  act  of  murder. 

Do  you  think,  then,  that  I  would  release  a  tiger  amongst  the 
crowd  in  a  circus,  or  that  I  would  allow  a  homicidal  maniac  to 
go  at  large  in  the  streets  of  a  city? 

It  would  be  folly  to  give  to  this  brutalised  and  ignorant  tramp 

135 


NOT  GUILTY 

a  message  which  hardly  a  man  in  this  court  is  sufficiently  educated 
and  refined  to  understand ;  it  would  be  folly  to  set  at  liberty  a  be- 
sotted savage :  it  would  be  unsafe. 

But  I  say  to  you  that  the  prisoner  is  a  victim  of  heredity  and 
environment,  that  he  has  been  debased  and  wronged  by  society, 
and  that  to  punish  him  is  unjust. 

(A  woman's  voice :    "The  monster!    Kill  him.") 

Madam,  there  is  not  a  woman  here  can  be  sure  that  any  child 
she  bears  may  not  be  driven  by  society  to  stand  some  day  in  the 
dock. 

But  still.  You  are  not  satisfied.  Some  of  you,  at  any  rate, 
still  frown  and  set  your  teeth  hard.  Logic  or  no  logic,  he  has 
murdered  a  baby. 

There  stands  my  clerical  friend,  with  knitted  brows,  and  fire 
in  his  eyes.  But  that  his  calling  checks  his  fierce  old  Saxon 
heredity  this  parson  would  echo  the  stern  speech  of  Carlyle  to 
the  criminal:  "Scoundrel!  Know  that  we  for  ever  hate 
thee !" 

Ah !  I  thought  so.  The  cloud  begins  to  clear  from  the  face  of 
my  clerical  friend :  the  crowd  look  hopeful.  Grim  old  Thomas  ap- 
peals to  you.  The  prisoner  is  a  scoundrel,  and  you  do  hate  him. 
Nothing  I  have  said,  so  far,  has  shaken  that  feeling.  He  is  a 
scoundrel,  and  you  hate  him.  What  is  more,  you  cannot  forgive 
me  for  not  hating  him.  You  cannot  believe  that  I  am  a  natural 
man.  I  ought  to  hate  him.  Well,  my  friends,  how  do  we  feel 
about  a  shark  ?  I  think  you  will  find  that  men  hate  a  shark.  And 
I  think  you  will  find  that  they  hate  him  more  bitterly  than  they 
hate  a  tiger.  And  I  think  you  will  find  that  they  believe  they  hate 
the  shark  because  he  is  cruel.  But  that  seems  to  me  a  mistake. 
The  shark  is  not  so  cruel  as  a  cat ;  it  is  not  so  cruel  as  a  shrike ; 
it  is  nothing  like  so  cruel  as  a  European  lady.  For  though  the 
shark  will  devour  any  animals  it  can  reach,  it  does  not  deliberately 
torture  them.  Now  the  cat  tortures  the  mouse,  the  shrike  im- 
pales flies  or  beetles  upon  a  thorn,  and  leaves  them  to  die,  and  the 
European  lady  eats  lobster,  which  has,  to  her  knowledge,  been 
boiled  alive. 

But  the  shark  kills  human  beings.  So  do  tigers,  so  do  lions,  and 
so  do  men. 

But  the  shark  is  horrible.  Yes ;  now  we  are  getting  nearer  the 
real  root  of  our  hatred.  The  shark  is  horrible.  And  so  is  the 
murderer. 

But  there  is  a  difference  between  horror  and  hate.  The  mur- 
dtrer  is  horrible  to  me,  far  more  horrible  than  the  shark,  just  as 

136 


GUILTY  OB  NOT  GUILTY? 

a  mad  man  is  more  horrible  than  a  mad  dog;  just  as  a  human 
corpse  is  more  awful  than  the  carcase  of  a  deer. 

The  criminal  makes  me  shudder,  he  makes  my  flesh  creep ;  my 
whole  nature  recoils  from  him.  But  I  do  not  hate  him,  and  I 
do  not  blame  him. 

Which  of  us  does  not  admire  and  honour  an  innocent,  graceful, 
and  charming  girl  ?  To  all  of  us,  men  and  women,  her  presence  is 
more  delightful  than  a  garden  of  sweet  flowers. 

Think  of  some  such  amiable  and  gentle  creature.  Then  imagine 
that  we  meet  her  ten  years  hence,  and  find  her  a  drunken  harlot, 
wallowing  in  the  gutter.  Think  of  her  then  so  hideous,  filthy,  and 
obscene ;  think  of  her  debased,  indecent,  treacherous ;  think  of  her 
incapable  of  honesty,  of  gratitude,  of  truth;  think  of  her  sullied 
and  broken  and  so  vile  that  she  would  betray  her  only  friend  for 
a  glass  of  gin :  think  of  her  well,  and  ask  yourselves  how  should 
we  feel  towards  her. 

Some  of  us  would  blame  her :  some  of  us  would  pity  her :  some 
of  us  would  try  to  befriend  her :  but  hardly  one  of  us  could  endure 
her  touch,  her  speech,  her  gaze.  She  has  become  a  horror  in  the 
light  of  the  day. 

My  clerical  friend  and  I  would  stand  before  her  sick  and  sorry 
and  ashamed.  We  should  be  alike  dismayed  and  shocked:  we 
should  be  alike  touched  and  repelled.  But  there  in  that  tragic 
moment  would  appear  the  likeness  and  the  difference  between 
us.  He  would  not  understand. 

The  unfortunate  woman  has  been  rendered  physically  and 
morally  loathsome  to  us.  So  has  this  murderer.  But  that  should 
cause  us  to  pity,  and  not  to  hate  them;  it  should  inspire  us  not 
to  destroy  them;  but  to  destroy  the  evil  conditions  that  have 
brought  them,  and  millions  as  unfortunate  as  they,  to  this  terrible 
and  shameful  pass.  The  bitterest  wrong  of  all  is  the  fact  that 
these  fellow-creatures  of  ours  have  been  degraded  below  the  reach 
of  our  help  and  our  affection. 

Looking  into  my  own  heart,  and  recalling  my  experience  of  men 
and  women,  I  must  own  that  there  is  not  one  in  a  thousand  of 
us  who  might  not  have  become  a  shame  and  a  horror  to  our  fel- 
lows had  our  environment  been  as  cruel  and  as  hard  as  the  en- 
vironment of  these  from  whom  we  shrink  appalled. 

And  when  I  read  of  a  murder,  when  I  see  some  human  wreck, 
so  repulsive  and  unsightly  that  my  soul  is  sick  within  me,  and 
my  flesh  shudders  away  from  the  contact,  I  crush  the  anger  out 
of  my  heart,  and  remember  what  I  am  and  might  have  been, 
and  tha+  this  man,  this  woman,  now  so  dreadful  or  so  vile,  is  a 

137 


NOT  GUILTY 

victim  of  a  state  of  society  which  most  of  us  believe  in  and  uphold. 

I  cannot  hate  these  miserables,  but  I  cannot  love  them.  I  could 
not  sleep  in  a  dirty  bed,  nor  eat  a  rotten  peach,  nor  listen  to  a 
piano  out  of  tune,  nor  drink  after  a  leper  or  a  slut,  nor  make  a 
friend  of  a  sweater,  nor  shake  the  hand  of  an  assassin,  nor  sit  at 
table  with  a  filthy  sot. 

But  to  drive  our  fellow-creatures  into  disgrace  and  crime  be- 
yond redemption,  and  then  to  hate  them  or  to  hang  them ;  is  that 
just? 

To  loathe  and  punish  the  victims  of  society,  and  never  lift  a 
hand  against  the  wrongs  that  are  their  ruin,  is  that  reasonable  ? 

I  ask  for  a  verdict  in  the  prisoner's  favour;  but  I  cannot  ask 
that  he  be  set  at  liberty.  We  could  not  liberate  a  smallpox  patient 
nor  a  lunatic. 

Although  the  prisoner  ought  not  to  be  punished,  it  is  imperative 
that  he  be  restrained. 

Being  what  he  is :  being  what  society  has  made  him,  he  is  not 
fit  to  be  at  large. 

We  must  defend  ourselves  against  him.  We  must  protect  our 
children  from  him,  even  although  we  have  failed  to  protect  other 
children  against  society. 

I  ask  the  jury  for  a  verdict  in  the  prisoner's  favour.  I  leave  the 
prisoner  to  their  justice  and  to  their  reason.  That  is  my  case. 


CHAPTER  THIRTEEN 
THE  FAILURE  OF 
PUNISHMENT 

OES  it  do  a  man  any  good  to  hang  him?  Does  it  do  us 
any  good  to  hang  him  ?  Is  any  human  being  in  the  wide 
world  edified  or  bettered  when  a  man  is  hanged?  Is  it 
any  use  hanging  men  ? 

That  it  is  unjust  to  hang  a  man  we  have  seen.  But  is  it  any 
use? 

There  is  a  certain  school  of  moralists  who  are  angered  and 
alarmed  by  the  mere  suggestion  that  men  should  cease  to  blame 
and  punish  each  other.  They  protest  that  virtue  would  die  out 
and  morality  become  a  mockery  if  we  ceased  to  scold,  and  whip, 
and  execute  each  other.  They  seem  to  believe  that  injustice  and 
ferocity  are  the  best  exemplars  of  justice  and  human  kindness. 

Dr.  Aked,  minister  of  Pembroke  Chapel,  Liverpool,  declaiming 
against  what  he  called  "this  preposterous  notion  of  moral  irre- 
sponsibility," declared  that  "it  is  the  doctrine  of  every  coward, 
of  every  cur,  of  every  thief  who  ever  pilfered  from  his  master's 
till,  of  every  seducer  and  traitor  the  world  has  seen."  I  whisper 
the  name  of  Torquemada,  and  pass  on. 

Dr.  Aked,  supposing,  for  the  sake  of  illustration,  that  he  who 
has  been  a  bad  man,  said : 

If,  in  the  mercy  of  God,  the  day  conies  when  I  see  myself  as 
I  am,  when  there  is  no  more  shuffling,  when  to  myself  Myself 
is  compelled,  even  to  the  teeth  and  forehead  of  my  faults,  to 
give  in  evidence — if  such  a  day  comes,  no  juggling  with  words, 
no  nonsense  about  not  knowing  any  better  or  being  driven  by 
education  upon  organisation,  by  environment  acting  on  hered- 
ity, will  serve  to  conceal  from  my  soul  the  hideous  view  of  its 
own  guilt. 

And  yet  Dr.  Aked  is  a  minister  of  the  Christian  religion,  and 
a  professed  follower  of  Christ,  who  said  of  his  murderers,  "Father 
forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

I  might  imitate  Dr.  Aked,  and  denounce  the  idea  that  punish- 

139 


NOT  GUILTY 

ment  makes  men  virtuous  and  docile  as  the  idea  of  every  tyrant, 
of  every  religious  persecutor,  of  every  wife-beater,  of  every  mar- 
tinet, of  every  bully  and  brute  the  world  has  ever  seen.  But  I 
prefer  to  look  calmly  and  sensibly  at  the  evidence. 

That  mighty  moral  ruler,  King  Henry  VIII.,  during  his  reign 
did,  according  to  the  author  of  Elizabethan  England,  hang  up 
seventy-two  thousand  thieves,  rogues,  and  vagabonds. 

Now,  Sir  Thomas  More,  who  was  one  of  the  finest  men  Eng- 
land ever  bred,  and  was  Lord  High  Chancellor  under  Henry 
VIII.,  has  put  it  upon  record,  in  his  great  and  noble  work,  Utopia, 
that  these  severe  punishments  were  not  only  unjust,  but  ineffec- 
tual. 

I  will  quote  from  Sir  Thomas : 

One  day  when  I  was  dining  with  him  (Cardinal  Archbishop 
Morton)  there  happened  to  be  at  table  one  of  the  English  law- 
yers, who  took  occasion  to  run  out  in  a  high  commendation  of 
the  severe  execution  of  justice  upon  thieves,  who,  as  he  said, 
were  then  hanged  so  fast,  that  there  were  sometimes  twenty 
on  one  gibbet;  and  upon  that  he  said  he  could  not  wonder 
enough  how  it  came  to  pass,  that  since  so  few  escaped,  there 
were  yet  so  many  thieves  left  who  were  still  robbing  in  all 
places. 

Upon  this,  I,  who  took  the  boldness  to  speak  freely  before 
the  Cardinal,  said  there  was  no  reason  to  wonder  at  the  matter, 
since  this  way  of  punishing  thieves  was  neither  just  in  itself, 
nor  good  for  the  public ;  for  as  the  severity  was  too  great,  so 
the  remedy  was  not  effectual;  simple  theft  not  being  so  great 
a  crime  that  it  ought  to  cost  a  man  his  life ;  and  no  punishment, 
how  severe  soever,  being  able  to  restrain  those  from  robbing, 
who  can  find  out  no  other  way  of  livelihood ;  and  in  this,  said 
I,  not  only  you  in  England,  but  a  great  part  of  the  world,  imi- 
tate some  ill  masters  that  are  readier  to  chastise  their  scholars 

than  to  teach  them.  There  are  dreadful  punishments  enacte 
against  thieves,  but  it  were  much  better  to  make  such  good 
provisions  by  which  every  man  might  be  put  in  a  method  how 
to  live,  and  so  be  preserved  from  the  fatal  necessity  of  stealing, 
and  dying  for  it.  .  .  .  If  you  do  not  find  a  remedy  to 
these  evils,  it  is  a  vain  thing  to  boast  of  your  severity  of  pun- 
ishing theft;  which,  though  it  may  have  the  appearance  of 
justice,  yet  in  itself  is  neither  just  nor  convenient;  for  if  you 
suffer  your  people  to  be  ill-educated,  and  their  manners  to  be 
torrupted  from  their  infancy,  and  then  punish  them  for  those 

140 


THE  FAILURE  OF  PUNISHMENT 

crimes  to  which  their  first  education  disposed  them,  what  else 
is  to  be  concluded  from  this,  but  that  you  first  make  thieves, 
and  then  punish  them? 

In  confirmation  of  the  statement  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  Lord 
Chancellor,  we  have  the  evidence  of  Harrison,  that  after  these 
72,000  executions  of  Henry,  there  were  more  thieves  than  ever  in 
the  next  reign. 

Harrison,  who  wrote  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  says  of  the 
"rogues  and  vagabonds":  "the  punishment  that  is  ordained  for 
this  kind  of  people  is  very  sharp,  and  yet  it  cannot  restrain  them 
from  their  gadding." 

In  that  day  any  one  convicted,  "on  the  testimony  of  two  hon- 
est and  credible  witnesses,"  of  being  a  "rogue,"  "he  is  then  im- 
mediately adjudged  to  be  grievously  whipped,  and  burned  through 
the  gristle  of  the  right  ear,  with  a  hot  iron  of  the  compass  of  an 
inch  about."  Amongst  the  "rogues"  were  included  actors,  jug- 
glers, fencers,  minstrels,  and  tinkers! 

Harrison  boasts  that  our  laws  against  felons  were  more  hu- 
mane than  those  of  the  Continent.  Let  us  consider  the  leniency 
of  Elizabeth's  day.  A  woman  who  poisoned  her  husband  was 
burnt  alive.  Other  poisoners  were  boiled  alive,  or  scalded  to 
death  in  "seething  water  or  lead."  Heretics  and  witches  were 
burnt  alive.  Murderers  were  hanged  alive  in  chains.  Harrison 
adds :  "We  have  use  neither  of  the  wheel  nor  of  the  bar  as  in 
other  countries ;  but  when  wilful  manslaughter  is  perpetrated,  be- 
sides hanging,  the  offender  hath  his  right  hand  commonly  stricken 
off,  before  or  near  the  place  where  the  act  was  done,  after  which 
he  is  led  forth  to  the  place  of  execution  and  there  put  to  death  ac- 
cording to  the  law." 

For  treason  men  were  "hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered." 

For  felony,  which  was  anything  from  highway  robbery  to  theft 
of  a  piece  of  bread,  men,  women,  and  children  were  hanged. 
There  were  over  250  offences  for  which  the  penalty  was 
death. 

For  "speaking  sedition  against  a  magistrate"  the  offender  had 
both  his  ears  cut  off. 

If  a  prisoner  refused  to  plead  he  was  pressed  to  death  under 
heavy  weights. 

Harrison  says  that  "there  is  not  one  year"  in  which  three  or 
four  hundred  "rogues"  are  not  "eaten  up  by  the  gallows."  And 
then  he  goes  on  to  remark  that  so  many  are  the  idle  rogues,  that 
"except  some  better  order  be  taken,  or  the  laws  already  made 

141 


NOT  GUILTY 

be  better  executed,  such  as  dwell  in  uplandish  towns  and  little 
villages  shall  live  but  in  small  safety  or  rest." 

A  hundred  years  ago  there  were  over  two  hundred  offences  for 
which  the  punishment  was  death.  Boys  and  girls  were  hanged  for 
theft.  Mr.  Collinson,  in  Facts  about  Floggings,  says  that  in  1816 
there  were  at  one  time  over  fifty  prisoners  in  England  waiting 
to  be  hanged,  and  that  one  of  them  was  a  child  of  tender  years. 
Mr.  Collinson  says: 

The  inefficiency  and  brutality  of  all  this  torture  and  blood- 
shed became  obvious  to  the  people,  through  the  propaganda  of 
a  few  daring  and  enlightened  reformers,  and  it  was  swept  away. 

But  let  us  come  nearer  home.  About  a  dozen  years  ago  the  late 
Mr.  Hopwood,  K.C.,  Recorder  of  Liverpool,  was  good  enough  to 
give  me  his  opinions  on  the  subject  of  harsh  and  lenient  punish- 
ment. Mr.  Hopwood  said: 

I  was  first  convinced  of  the  uselessness  of  harsh  sentences 
by  attendance  at  two  courts  of  sessions  about  thirty-five  years 
ago.  The  two  courts  were  those  of  Manchester  and  Salford — 
towns  very  similar  as  to  population  and  conditions  of  life.  In 
Salford  the  sentences  were  uniformly  lenient.  In  Manchester 
they  were  uniformly  severe.  People  said  Manchester  would 
be  purged  of  crime ;  that  all  the  criminals  would  flock  to  Sal- 
ford.  It  was  not  so.  The  state  of  things  continued  for  some 
years,  and  caused  no  increase  of  crime  in  the  one,  nor  decrease 
of  crime  in  the  other  town.  Hence  it  becomes  evident  that 
a  great  deal  of  useless  punishment  was  inflicted  in  Manchester. 
I  was  a  young  barrister  at  the  time,  and  I  took  the  lesson  to 
heart. 

Mr.  Hopwood  only  claimed  a  negative  result.  He  said :  "I  do 
not  say  I  have  reduced  crime,  but  only  that  I  have  reduced  pun- 
ishment without  increasing  crime.  For  instance,  I  claim  that 
during  my  six  years  at  this  court  I  have  saved  three  thousand 
years  of  imprisonment." 

When  I  remarked  "that  saved  a  great  waste  of  money,"  he  an- 
swered that  it  was  "a  great  saving  of  humanity."  He  claimed 
that  life  and  property  were  at  least  as  secure  under  a  clement 
judge  as  under  a  cruel  one,  and  that  his  system  saved  much  suf- 
fering and  shame,  not  only  to  the  prisoners,  but  also  to  those  de- 
pendent upon  them.  He  said  that  very  often  his  treatment  had  a 

142 


THE  FAILURE  OF  PUNISHMENT 

good  effect  upon  the  prisoners:  "Do  you  know,  often  they  are 
ashamed  to  come  back." 

Mr.  Hopwood  told  me  that  at  first  he  met  with  strong  opposi- 
tion, but  that  his  example  had  such  an  effect  that  the  local  mag- 
istrates had  come  "to  give  six  or  ten  months'  imprisonment  in 
cases  where  formerly  the  offenders  would  have  got  seven  years." 

Asked  whether  his  leniency  had  caused  criminals  to  flock  to 
Liverpool,  Mr.  Hopwood  answered,  "Not  at  all" ;  and  his  denial 
was  backed  by  the  statement  of  the  Chief  Constable  that  "crime 
was  decreasing  to  an  appreciable  extent." 

Mr.  Hopwood  told  me  he  would  like  to  release  one-third  of 
those  men  then  in  prison,  and,  he  added,  "another  third  ought 
never  to  have  gone  there."  Asked  what  that  meant,  he  said  that 
one-third  of  the  prisoners  were  innocent.  My  own  observation, 
in  the  police-courts  afterwards,  convinced  me  that  he  was  quite 
right.  Finally,  after  showing  me  that  the  boasted  cure  of  garrot- 
ting by  "the  cat"  was  a  fiction,  "there  never  was  a  garrotter 
flogged,"  Mr.  Hopwood  asked  me  to  go  and  see  some  of  our 
prisons,  remarking,  gravely: 

The  prison  system  is  cruel  and  vile.  The  prisoners  are 
starved,  tortured,  and  degraded.  The  system  should  be  altered 
at  once.  It  is  inhumanly  severe  upon  the  guilty,  and,  in  my 
opinion,  a  good  third  of  those  in  our  gaols  are  not  guilty. 

Dr.  James  Devon,  medical  officer  at  Glasgow  Prison,  told  the 
Royal  Philosophical  Society  in  that  city,  in  1904,  that  "with 
milder  methods  of  repression  we  have  not  more,  but  less,  crime : 
and  certainly  much  less  brutality." 

Dr.  Hamilton  D.  Wey,  of  Elmira  Reformatory,  Elmira,  N.  Y., 
says: 

"The  time  will  come  when  every  punitive  institution  in  the  world 
will  be  destroyed,  and  be  replaced  by  hospitals,  schools,  work- 
shops, and  reformatories." 

Dr.  Lydston,  professor  of  criminal  anthropology,  writes  as  fol- 
lows : 

"Try  to  reform  your  man,  try  to  purify  and  elevate  his  soul, 
and  if  he  does  not  come  to  time,  lock  him  up  or  hang  him." 
This  has  been  the  war-cry  of  the  average  reformer  through  all 
the  ages.  "Make  a  healthy  man  of  your  criminal,  or  prospec- 
tive criminal,  give  him  a  sound,  well-developed  brain  to  think 
with,  and  rich,  clean  blood  to  feed  it  upon,  and  an  opportunity 

143 


NOT  GUILTY 

to  earn  an  honest  living — then  preach  to  him  if  you  like."  This 
is  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  scientific  criminologist. 
Which  is  the  more  rational  ? 

Havelock  Ellis  says  in  his  work  on  "the  criminal,"  "Flogging 
is  objectionable,  because  it  is  ineffectual,  and  because  it  brutalises 
and  degrades  those  on  whom  it  is  inflicted,  those  who  inflict  it, 
and  those  who  come  within  the  radius  of  its  influence." 

The  Recorder  of  Liverpool  told  me  that  millions  were  wasted 
upon  prisons  which  ought  to  be  spent  upon  detection.  "Make 
detection  swift  and  certain,"  said  he,  "and  crime  will  cease.  No 
one  will  steal  if  he  is  sure  he  will  be  caught  every  time." 

This  is  proved  by  the  Revenue  service.  Penalties  did  not  stop 
smuggling;  but  it  has  now  become  almost  impossible  to  run  a 
cargo :  the  coast  is  so  closely  guarded. 

Dr.  Lydston,  in  The  Diseases  of  Society,  says : 

The  prospective  criminal  once  born,  what  does  society  do  to 
prevent  his  becoming  a  criminal  ?  Practically  nothing.  .  .  . 
What  is  the  remedy  at  present  in  vogue  ?  Society  punishes  the 
vicious  child  after  a  criminal  act  has  been  committed,  and 
sends  the  diseased  one  to  the  hospital  to  be  supported  by  the 
public,  after  he  has  become  helpless.  Even  in  this,  the  twen- 
tieth century,  the  child  who  has  committed  his  first  offence  is  in 
most  communities  thrown  by  the  authorities  into  contact  with 
older  and  more  hardened  criminals — to  have  his  criminal  edu- 
cation completed.  The  same  fate  is  meted  out  to  the  adult 
"first  offender."  We  have  millions  for  sectarian  universities, 
millions  for  foreign  missions,  but  few  dollars  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  children  of  vicious  propensities  or  corrupting  oppor- 
tunities, who  are  the  product  of  our  own  vicious  social  system. 
Every  penal  institution,  every  expensive  process  of  criminal 
law,  is  a  monument  to  the  stupidity  and  wastefulness  of  society 
— and  expenditure  of  money  and  energy  to  cure  a  disease  that 
might  be  largely  prevented,  and  more  logically  treated  where 
not  prevented. 

Lombroso,  the  great  Italian  criminologist,  said,  in  1901 : 

There  are  few  who  understand  that  there  is  anything  else  for 
us  to  do,  to  protect  ourselves  from  crime,  except  to  inflict  pun- 
ishments that  are  often  only  new  crimes,  and  that  are  almost 
always  the  source  of  new  crimes. 

144 


THE  FAILURE  OF  PUNISHMENT 

To  what  does  all  this  evidence  tend? 

From  the  day  of  Sir  Thomas  More  to  the  present  hour,  it  has 
been  claimed  by  wise  and  experienced  men  that  punishment  is  not 
only  unjust,  but  worse  than  useless.  And  the  statistics  of  crime 
have  always  supported  the  claim. 

There  was  more  crime  in  the  fifteenth  century,  when  penalties 
were  so  severe,  than  there  is  to-day.  There  were  worse  crimes. 
There  was  more  brutality. 

The  abolition  of  cruel  punishments  has  diminished  crime.  The 
abolition  of  flogging  in  the  army  and  navy  has  not  injured  either 
service.  The  improvement  in  school  discipline  has  not  lowered 
the  moral  standard  of  boys  and  girls. 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  the  decrease  in  crime,  and  the  improve- 
ment in  morals  are  not  due  only  to  the  increased  leniency  of  pun- 
ishments. They  are  due  also  to  the  spread  of  education,  and  to 
the  improved  conditions  of  life. 

Exactly.  That  is  my  case.  Decrease  of  punishment,  and  in- 
crease of  education,  have  diminished  crime  and  improved  morals. 

Punish  less,  and  teach  more ;  blame  less,  and  encourage  more ; 
hate  less,  and  love  more;  and  you  will  get  not  a  lowering,  but  a 
raising  of  the  moral  standard;  not  an  increase  in  crime,  but  a 
decrease.  And  the  improvement  will  be  due  to  alteration  for  the 
better  of — environment. 

Chance  has  placed  me  very  often  in  positions  of  authority.  I 
have  been  in  charge  of  rough  and  reckless  men :  soldiers,  militia- 
men, navvies,  workers  of  all  sorts.  I  have  never  found  it  neces- 
sary to  be  harsh,  nor  to  threaten,  nor  to  drive.  I  have  always 
found  that  to  respect  men  as  men,  to  treat  them  fairly  and  quietly, 
and  to  show  a  little  kindness  now  and  again,  has  sufficed  to  get 
the  best  out  of  them. 

I  have  gone  into  the  midst  of  a  crowd  of  Irish  soldiers,  all 
drunk,  and  all  fighting  in  true  Donnybrook  fashion,  and  have  got 
order  without  a  hard  word,  without  making  a  single  prisoner. 
Directly  they  recognised  me  they  calmed  down.  Had  I  been  a 
sergeant  disliked  by  them  they  would  have  thrown  me  downstairs. 

I  have  found  the  wildest  and  the  lowest  amenable  to  reason  and 
to  kindness.  One  of  the  greatest  ruffians  in  the  regiment  once 
spoke  rudely  to  me  in  camp,  and  even  threatened  me.  I  was  then 
a  lance-corporal,  and  a  mere  boy.  I  sat  down  and  talked  to  the 
bruiser  quietly  for  a  few  minutes,  and  from  that  day  he  would 
have  done  anything  for  me. 

There  was  a  blackguard  in  my  company  who  once  threatened 
to  murder  me.  A  few  months  later  he  was  taken  ill  in  the  night 

145 


NOT  GUILTY 

and  I  attended  to  him,  and  probably  saved  his  life.  He  never 
forgot  it.  It  was  but  a  small  kindness,  and  he  was  what  is  gen- 
erally called  a  scoundrel,  but  he  showed  his  gratitude  to  me  all  the 
rest  of  the  time  I  was  in  the  army. 

As  a  child  I  was  brought  up  under  strict  discipline.  I  felt  that 
it  was  a  wrong  method.  I  have  "spoilt"  my  children;  and  they 
are  better  than  I  ever  was. 

Parents  beat  their  children  for  their  own  errors.  If  a  father 
cannot  gain  the  respect  and  obedience  of  his  children,  it  is  be- 
cause he  is  foolish,  or  violent,  or  ignorant.  Children,  soldiers,  and 
animals  are  alike  in  one  respect :  they  know  and  respect  strength 
and  reason.  The  quiet  manager,  officer,  sergeant,  parent,  who 
knows  his  own  mind,  who  keeps  his  temper,  who  is  not  afraid, 
can  always  get  discipline  and  order.  If  I  thought  any  one  under 
my  control  or  care  was  afraid  of  me,  I  should  feel  ashamed.  If 
a  master  rules  only  by  fear  of  punishment  he  is  not  fit  to  rule  at 
all.  When  those  over  whom  we  happen  to  be  placed  in  authority 
feel  that  we  deserve  their  respect,  we  get  it.  If  you  want  to  know 
whether  a  man  is  fit  for  command,  put  him  with  men  who  are 
not  bound  to  obey  him.  Put  him  with  his  equals,  where  he  has 
no  power  to  punish  nor  to  harm.  Thus  you  will  find  the  real 
leader  of  men :  the  man  who  leads  with  his  brains. 

I  knew  a  young  lieutenant  once,  a  boy  of  twenty.  He  met  a  boy 
private  in  town,  and  saw  that  he  had  been  drinking.  Had  he  made 
a  prisoner  of  the  boy,  the  private  would  have  got  punished  for 
drunkenness,  and  would  have  got  drunk  again.  But  the  young 
officer  sent  for  the  boy  the  next  day  and  said,  "If  I  were  you, 
Thomas,  I  wouldn't  drink.  It  is  a  poor  game,  and  your  people 
would  not  like  it."  That  boy  was  cured. 

That  same  officer,  if  the  men  were  unsteady  on  parade,  would 
stand  quite  still  and  look  at  them.  He  had  clear  blue  eyes,  and 
his  look  was  not  stern,  it  was  calm  and  confident.  It  brought  the 
whole  company  to  attention  without  a  word.  The  officer  was  a 
man,  and  the  men  knew  it,  and  they  knew  it  because  he  knew  it. 
The  boss  who  begins  to  bully  is  not  sure  of  himself.  Children, 
soldiers,  workers,  and  animals  know  by  instinct  when  the  boss  is 
not  sure  of  himself. 

Those  who  put  so  much  trust  in  blame  and  punishment  do  not 
understand  human  nature.  I  said  in  a  previous  chapter  that  a 
man  could  not  believe  a  thing  unless  his  reason  told  him  that  it 
was  true.  I  now  say  that  a  man  cannot  help  believing  a  thing 
when  his  reason  tells  him  it  is  true.  The  secret  of  reform  is  to 
make  men  understand. 

146 


THE  FAILURE  OF  PUNISHMENT 

The  terrors  of  capital  punishment,  the  terrors  of  the  "cat," 
even  the  terrors  of  hell-fire  fail  to  awe  the  criminal.  That  is  be- 
cause the  criminal  is  stupid  or  ignorant,  and  lacks  imagination. 
He  hears  of  hell,  and  of  death.  But  he  cannot  imagine  either. 
He  seldom  thinks.  He  seldom  looks  beyond  the  end  of  his  nose. 

Discipline  is  not  preserved  in  the  army  by  the  dread  of  the 
"cat,"  nor  of  the  cells.  It  is  kept  by  the  fact  that  the  wildest 
and  most  reckless  man  knows  that  he  must  obey,  that  the  whole 
physical  and  moral  force  of  the  army  is  united  to  insist  upon 
obedience. 

If  he  disobey  an  order  he  will  be  punished.  He  does  not  care 
a  snap  of  his  fingers  for  the  punishment.  But  he  knows  that  after 
he  has  done  his  punishment  drill  the  order  will  be  repeated,  and 
that  he  will  be  obliged  to  obey.  He  knows  that  the  sentiment  of 
the  army  is  against  him  until  he  does  obey. 

I  have  seen  an  officer  get  a  battalion  into  a  mess  on  parade, 
and  then  lose  his  temper  and  bully  the  men..  And  I  have  seen 
another  officer  on  the  same  day  drill  the  men  and  get  them  to  work 
like  a  machine.  The  first  officer  did  not  know  how  to  give  the 
orders.  The  second  knew  his  business,  was  sure  that  he  did  know 
it,  and  so  let  the  men  feel  that  he  knew  it. 

It  is  with  parents  as  with  those  two  officers.  The  one  who 
knows  his  duty,  and  does  it  properly,  never  has  any  occasion  to 
lose  his  temper. 

It  is  time  Solomon's  rod  followed  the  witches'  broom.  It  is 
time  the  "cat,"  and  the  chain,  and  the  cell,  and  the  convict's 
dress,  and  the  oakum  and  the  skilly,  and  the  gallows  followed 
the  rack  and  the  thumbscrew  and  the  faggot  and  the  wheel.  It  is 
time  the  leaders  of  the  people  were  taught  to  lead.  It  is  time  the 
educated  and  the  uneducated  were  given  some  real  education.  It 
is  time  that  tyranny,  cruelty,  self-righteousness,  superstition,  and 
the  bad  old  conventions  of  an  ignorant  past,  gave  place  to  reason, 
to  science,  to  manhood. 

"But,"  the  penal  moralist  will  demand,  "if  you  propose  to  abol- 
ish blame  and  punishment,  what  do  you  propose  to  put  in  their 
place?" 

And  I  answer,  "Justice,  knowledge,  and  reason — in  fact,  an 
improved  environment." 

The  cause  of  most  of  our  social  and  moral  troubles  is  ignorance. 

By  ignorance  I  do  not  mean  illiteracy  only :  there  are  many  clas- 
sical scholars  who  are  really  ignorant  men.  No:  I  mean  igno- 
rance of  human  nature  and  of  the  essentials  to  a  happy  and  whole- 
some human  life.  It  is  this  kind  of  ignorance  which  divides  the 

147 


NOT  GUILTY 

people  into  two  classes:  rich  and  poor — masters  and  slaves.  It 
is  this  kind  of  ignorance  which  causes  men  to  sacrifice  health,  hap- 
piness, and  virtue  for  the  sake  of  vanity,  and  idleness,  and  wealth. 
It  is  the  kind  of  ignorance  which  keeps  twelve  millions  of  people 
in  a  rich  and  fertile  country  always  on  the  verge  of  destitution. 
It  is  this  kind  of  ignorance  which  saddles  mankind  with  the  cost 
of  armies,  and  fleets,  and  prisons,  and  police.  It  is  this  kind  of 
ignorance  which  breeds  millions  of  criminals,  and  educates  them 
in  crime.  It  is  this  kind  of  ignorance  which  splits  a  great  nation 
into  castes,  and  sects,  and  makes  the  realisation  of  the  glorious 
ideal  of  human  brotherhood  impossible.  It  is  this  kind  of  igno- 
rance which  drives  professing  Christians  to  neglect  the  teachings 
of  Christ.  It  is  this  kind  of  ignorance  which  makes  possible  the 
millionaire,  the  aristocrat,  the  sweater,  the  tramp,  the  thief,  the 
degenerate,  and  the  slave.  It  is  this  kind  of  ignorance  which 
keeps  the  children  hungry,  drives  the  men  to  drunkenness,  and 
the  women  to  shame.  It  is  this  kind  of  ignorance  which  is  an- 
swerable for  all  evil  environments  from  which  hate,  and  greed, 
and  poverty,  and  immorality  spring,  like  weeds  from  a  rank  and 
neglected  soil. 

We  cannot  get  rid  of  this  most  deadly  form  of  ignorance  by 
means  of  blame  and  punishment.  There  is  only  one  way  to  drive 
out  ignorance,  and  that  is  by  spreading  knowledge. 

What  knowledge  ?  Knowledge  of  human  nature  and  of  the  es- 
sentials to  a  happy  and  wholesome  life. 

It  is  bad  for  men  to  be  rich  and  idle ;  it  is  bad  for  men  to  be  ill- 
fed,  ill-clothed,  ill-housed,  ill-taught,  unhonoured,  and  unloved. 

Whilst  life  is  a  sordid  scramble,  in  which  the  prizes  are  perni- 
cious wealth,  and  luxury,  and  idleness,  and  in  which  the  blanks 
are  hunger,  ignorance,  vice,  unhappiness,  the  prison,  and  the  gal- 
lows ;  immorality  and  crime  must  flourish  as  pestilence  flourishes 
in  a  filthy,  pent,  and  insanitary  city.  It  is  sad  to  see  the  custo- 
dians of  the  public  morality  bewailing  the  wickedness  of  men,  and 
fostering  the  evil  surroundings  from  which  evil  springs.  It  is  as 
foolish  as  to  bewail  the  presence  of  malarial  fever,  to  punish  the 
victims  for  spreading  the  disease,  and  at  the  same  time  to  refuse  to 
drain  the  marsh  from  which  the  malaria  comes,  because  it  is  the 
property  of  a  grand  duke,  who  wishes  to  shoot  wildfowl  there. 

What  do  I  propose  should  be  done.  Why  that,  my  friends,  is 
another  story.  What  I  propose  at  present  to  do  is  to  prove  that 
crime  and  immorality  are  caused:  to  show  what  the  causes  are; 
and  to  point  out  that  the  recognised  remedies  are  ineffectual. 

While  we  have  an  idle  rich,  and  a  hungry  and  ignorant  poor, 

148 


THE  FAILUKE  OF  PUNISHMENT 

we  cannot  get  rid  of  vice  and  crime.  To  punish  the  criminals  we 
have  made,  is  unjust  and  useless;  to  pray  for  deliverance  from 
plague:  we  must  look  to  the  drains — we  must  improve  the  en- 
vironment. 

No  man  should  be  idle.  No  man  should  be  rich.  No  man 
should  be  ignorant,  no  man  destitute.  Every  man  should  have  a 
chance  to  earn  the  essentials  to  a  wholesome,  happy,  temperate, 
and  useful  life.  Every  child  should  be  nourished,  and  taught,  and 
trained. 

Crime,  vice,  disease,  poverty,  idleness  :  all  these  are  preventable 
evils. 

But  we  cannot  drain  our  marshes,  because,  little  as  we  heed  the 
misery  of  the  people,  the  ignorance  and  hunger  of  the  children, 
the  despair  of  the  men  and  the  degradation  of  the  women,  we  are 
marvellously  tender  of  Grand  Ducal  sport. 

It  is  Mammon  we  worship,  not  God;  it  is  property  we  prize, 
not  life ;  it  is  vanity  we  love,  and  not  our  fellow-creatures.  We 
are  an  ignorant,  atavistic  people;  and  our  priests  are  wondrous 
moral. 


CHAPTER     FOURTEEN 
SOME  OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED 


HE  upholders  of  the  doctrine  of  free  will  commonly  fall 
into  the  error  of  considering  heredity  and  environment 
apart  from  each  other. 

Father  Adderley,  in  a  lecture  given  at  Saltley,  told  his 
hearers  that  "all  our  great  scientists  agree  that  people  have  the 
power  to  overcome  their  hereditary  tendencies."  Perhaps:  but 
they  can  only  get  that  power  from  environment ;  and  if  the  envi- 
ronment is  bad  they  will  not  get  that  power. 

But  the  most  surprising  example  of  this  mental  squinting  is 
afforded  by  the  Rev.  C.  A.  Hall,  who  may  be  said  to  squint  with 
both  eyes.  For,  in  a  lecture  given  at  Paisley,  this  gentleman  first 
shows  that  we  can  overcome  our  heredity,  and  then  shows  that  we 
can  overcome  our  environment.  And  yet  it  never  occurred  to 
him  that  to  prove  the  freedom  of  the  will  we  must  be  able  to 
overcome  our  heredity  and  environment  together. 

Mr.  Hall's  argument  may  be  stated  thus :  By  the  aid  of  envi- 
ronment we  can  overcome  our  heredity;  by  the  aid  of  heredity, 
or  of  good  environment  we  can  overcome  bad  environment :  there- 
fore we  are  superior  to  heredity  and  environment. 

It  is  like  saying :  by  means  of  natural  intelligence  and  a  good 
teacher  I  can  become  a  good  scholar ;  by  means  of  natural  intel- 
ligence and  a  good  teacher  I  can  correct  the  errors  of  a  bad 
teacher.  Therefore  I  do  not  depend  upon  intelligence  nor  teach- 
ing for  my  knowledge. 

But  I  have  answered  Messrs.  Adderley  and  Hall  in  my  chapter 
on  self-control. 

An  example  of  a  similar  error  is  afforded  by  a  clergyman  who 
wrote  to  me  from  Warrington.  He  said : 

You  can  never  hope  to  improve  the  social  environment  until 
you  persuade  men  that  they  can  rise  superior  to  their  circum- 
stances. 

The  men  are  to  be  "persuaded"  to  rise.    And  what  is  that  per- 

150 


SOME  OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED 

suasion,  but  a  part  of  their  environment?  And  if  men  are  "per- 
suaded" to  try,  and  succeed,  to  whom  is  the  victory  due?  Is  it 
not  due  to  the  "persuasion"  ?  Of  course  it  is.  And  the  persuasion 
came  from  outside  themselves,  and  is  part  of  their  environment. 

The  same  clergyman  said,  "If  heredity  and  environment  have 
made  the  individuals  of  whom  society  is  made  up,  heredity  and 
environment  have  made  society  itself,"  and  asked  me  how  I  could 
logically  accuse  society  of  injuring  any  one. 

A  strange  question  based  upon  a  misunderstanding.  The  crimi- 
nal injures  society,  society  injures  the  criminal. 

I  accuse  both  of  injurious  action.  I  blame  neither.  I  say  both 
are  that  which  heredity  and  environment  made  them.  I  say 
neither  can  help  it.  But  I  say  that  both  can  be  taught  to  help  it, 
and  that  both  should  be  taught  to  help  it.  Is  there  anything  illog- 
ical in  that? 

This  brings  me  to  the  Rev.  Charles  Marson,  a  very  clever  and 
witty  man,  who  is  hopelessly  muddled  over  the  simple  matter.  In 
"The  Religious  Doubts  of  Democracy,"  Mr.  Marson  says : 

Now,  as  reform  starts  by  a  feeling  and  conviction  of  blame, 
and  cannot  start  at  all  unless  it  can  say :  "This  is  wrong.  It 
might  be  right.  This  ought  not  to  be  and  is,  and  need  not  be" ; 
so,  if  the  answer  is :  "But  this  was  as  mathematically  fixed  at 
its  birth  as  the  path  of  a  planet  in  its  orbit,"  the  poor  reformer 
can  only  say,  "Sorry  I  spoke";  and  if  he  speaks  again  it  will 
be  to  laugh  at  the  CLARION  for  wasting  ink  in  blaming  orbits 
which  are  mathematically  fixed. 

Indeed,  if  I  were  a  burglar,  I  would  invest  part  of  my  swag 
in  endowing  Determinists  to  pour  arguments  and  ridicule  upon 
Christian  magistrates  and  criminal  codes,  with  their  active  and 
irritating  blame.  Certainly,  if  I  were  Lord  Rackrent,  I  should 
invite  my  anti-reform  friends,  the  Determinists,  to  dinner,  take 
them  to  the  opera,  and  send  them  round  to  address  the  Social- 
ists, at  my  expense. 

Mr.  Blatchford,  being  anxious  to  fight  against  the  doctrine 
of  sin,  builds  a  fatalist  rampart,  looks  over  the  top,  and  says : 
"Can  man  sin  against  God  ?  His  actions  are  fixed."  We  walk 
round  behind  him  and  say :  "Can  man  sin  against  man  ?  Can 
social  systems  sin  against  man?"  And  the  very  rampart  of 
fatalism  he  has  erected  hinders  him  from  escaping  from  a  with- 
ering fire,  except  by  backing  into  obscurantism  and  ultra-Tory- 
ism. 

151 


NOT  GUILTY 

This  is  the  same  error,  differently  stated.  If  man  cannot  be 
blamed,  society  cannot  be  blamed :  therefore  everything  must  re- 
main as  it  is.  I  often  wonder  where  the  clergy  learn  their  logic. 

Men  cannot  be  blamed:  society  cannot  be  blamed.  But  both 
can  be  altered:  by  environment.  That  is  to  say,  if  heredity  and 
environment  have  endowed  some  man  with  reason  and  knowledge 
and  inclination  for  the  task,  that  man  may  be  able  to  improve  so- 
ciety, or  the  individual,  by  teaching  one  or  both.  And  the  teach- 
ing will  be  environment. 

We  cannot,  as  Mr.  Marson  pointed  out  in  his  article,  "blame" 
environment ;  but  we  can  attribute  evils  to  the  action  of  environ- 
ment, and  we  can  change  the  environment,  always  provided  that 
heredity  and  environment  have  endowed  us  with  the  needful 
knowledge  and  brains  for  the  purpose. 

Let  us  look  at  the  facts.  There  is  a  very  terrible  disease  called 
diphtheria.  It  is  caused  by  a  small  fungoid  bacillus,  and  it  has 
killed  myriads  of  children,  and  caused  much  suffering  and  grief. 

Do  we  blame  "the  vegetable  bacillus"  ?  No.  We  cannot  blame 
a  bacillus. 

So  I  say  we  cannot  blame  diphtheria  for  killing  children.  No 
sane  person  ever  suggested  blame  in  such  a  case.  But  do  we  take 
any  the  less  trouble  to  fight  against  diphtheria  ? 

We  do  not  "blame"  a  rat  for  eating  our  chickens,  nor  a  boat 
for  capsizing  in  a  breeze,  nor  a  lunatic  for  setting  fire  to  a  house, 
nor  a  shark  for  eating  a  sailor.  But  has  any  sane  person  ever 
suggested  that  we  should  not  try  to  keep  rats  out  of  the  hen- 
house, nor  to  ballast  a  faulty  boat,  nor  restrain  a  madman  from 
playing  with  fire,  nor  to  rescue  a  sailor  from  a  shark  ? 

Mr.  Marson  asks  ironically  whether  a  social  system  "can  be 
naughty,"  whether  a  social  system  may  be  praised  logically, 
blamed  logically,  and  held  responsible  logically. 

I  reply  that  a  social  system  cannot  be  logically  "blamed,"  any 
more  than  a  shark,  a  disease,  a  fool  can  be  logically  blamed.  But 
a  social  system  may  be  approved  or  disapproved,  and  may  be  al- 
tered and  abolished. 

We  cannot  "blame"  a  man's  environment,  in  the  strict  meaning 
of  the  word.  But  we  may  attribute  a  man's  crime,  or  shame,  or 
ruin  to  his  environment. 

We  do  not  blame  prussic  acid  for  being  lethal ;  but  we  do  not 
allow  chemists  to  sell  it  in  large  quantities  to  every  casual  stranger. 
Why?  Because  it  is  poison. 

Well,  the  influenza  bacillus  is  poison,  falsehood  is  poison,  vice  is 
poison,  greed  and  vanity  and  cruelty  are  poison ;  and  it  behooves 

152 


SOME  OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED 

us  to  destroy  those  poisons,  and  so  to  improve  our  social  system 
and  the  environment  of  our  fellow-men. 

We  come  now  to  the  idea  that  to  teach  men  that  all  blame  is 
unjust  is  to  encourage  them  to  do  wrong.  This  idea  is  expressed, 
with  characteristic  clumsiness  and  obscurity,  by  Bishop  Butler,  in 
that  monument  of  loose  thinking  and  foggy  writing,  "The  Analogy 
of  Religion." 

What  Butler  wanted  to  say,  and  tried  to  say,  in  more  than  800 
words  of  his  irritating  style,  is  simply  that  a  child  brought  up  to 
believe  that  praise  and  blame  were  unjust,  would  be  a  plague  to 
all  about  him,  and  would  probably  come  to  the  gallows.  The 
reader  will  find  it  in  Chapter  VI.  of  "The  Analogy." 

Now,  I  quite  believe  that  if  the  matter  had  to  be  explained  to 
a  child  by  Bishop  Butler  the  effect  would  be  fatal,  because  the 
poor  bishop  did  not  understand  it  himself,  and  was  not  good  at 
explaining  things  he  did  understand.  But  the  child  would  be  in 
no  danger  if  he  were  instructed  by  a  man  who  knew  what  he  was 
talking  about,  and  was  able  to  say  what  he  knew  in  plain  words 
and  clear  sentences.  And  I  can  say  from  my  experience  of  chil- 
dren that  I  find  them  readier  of  apprehension,  and  clearer  thinkers 
than  I  have  found  most  clergymen. 

As  I  have  dealt  with  this  argument  in  my  chapter  on  self-control 
I  need  not  go  over  the  ground  again.  But  I  may  say  that  we 
should  teach  a  child  that  some  things  are  right  and  some  are 
wrong,  and  why  they  are  right  and  why  they  are  wrong ;  and  that 
he  was  not  to  blame  others  because  they  either  do  not  know  any 
better,  or  are  unable  to  do  any  better,  and  we  should  teach  him 
that  one  learns  to  be  good  as  one  learns  to  write  or  to  swim,  and 
that  the  harder  one  tries  the  better  one  succeeds.  And  we  should 
feel  quite  sure  that  the  child  would  be  just  as  good  as  his  heredity 
and  our  training  made  him ;  and  as  for  his  coming  to  the  gallows, 
if  all  children  were  taught  on  our  system  there  would  be  no  gal- 
loivs  to  come  to,  and  very  few  looking  for  that  sacred  instrument, 
the  sight  of  which  convinced  Gulliver  that  he  was  "once  more  in 
a  Christian  country." 

Is  it  necessary  for  me  to  answer  the  charge  of  presumption 
brought  against  me  by  Dr.  Aked  ?  Dr.  Aked  says  I  am  presump- 
tuous because  I  deny  the  belief  of  great  and  holy  men  of  past 
ages.  He  says  that  the  agreement  of  Cheyne  and  Perowne  in 
praise  of  the  fifty-first  Psalm  is  typical  of  the  world's  consensus  of 
opinion.  And  this  Psalm  is  the  cry  of  a  broken  heart  for  deliv- 
erance from  sin.  Dr.  Aked  goes  on  as  follows : 

To-day  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  all  this  is  a  delusion. 

153 


NOT  GUILTY 

We  are  told  that  man  could  not  and  cannot  sin  against  God. 
We  are  invited  to  believe  that  the  men  of  every  age  and  na- 
tion whose  hearts  have  bled  in  sorrow  over  accomplished  sin, 
who  have  cried  in  anguish  of  soul  for  deliverance  from  the  body 
of  this  death,  whose  joy  in  the  realisation  of  divine  forgiveness 
has  flowed  in  strains  of  immortal  joy  over  countless  genera- 
tions, were  ignorant  and  foolish  persons,  inventing  their  suf- 
ferings and  imagining  their  solace,  and  needing  some  journal- 
ist of  the  twentieth  century  to  teach  them  that  no  man  could 
really  sin  against  God!  We  are,  apparently,  expected  to  be- 
lieve that  the  author  of  this  Psalm  and  the  author  of  the  "sec- 
ond Isaiah,"  that  Paul  and  Augustine,  the  author  of  "Thomas 
A'Kempis,"  and  John  Bunyan,  knew  nothing  of  psychology 
and  nothing  of  divinity,  that  they  never  understood  their  own 
experience,  and,  though  they  have  interpreted  humanity  to  un- 
counted millions  of  the  children  of  men,  yet  lived  and  died  in 
crass  ignorance  of  the  workings  of  the  human  heart. 

The  proposition  is  not  modest.  That  any  man  should  be 
found,  however  flippantly,  to  advance  it  is  marvellous.  That 
any  human  being  should  be  found  to  accept  it  seriously  is  in- 
credible. 

Dr.  Aked's  argument  amounts  to  a  claim  that  we  should  believe 
in  Free  Will  because  most  men  believe  in  it,  because  many  good 
and  great  men  have  believed  in  it. 

But  many  millions  of  men  have  believed  in  a  material  hell.  In 
which  Dr.  Aked  does  not  believe.  Many  good  and  great  men 
have  believed  in  a  material  hell,  and  millions  of  men  (some  of 
them  good  and  clever)  still  believe  in  a  material  hell.  And  Dr. 
Aked  does  not  believe  in  it. 

And  when  the  doctrine  of  hell-fire  was  first  assailed,  what  did 
the  Dr.  Akeds  of  the  time  declare?  That  without  the  fear  of  hell 
men  would  be  wicked,  and  would  do  wrong  in  defiance  of  God; 
and  that  the  theory  that  there  was  no  hell  of  fire  was  "incredible." 

And  what  is  this  charge  of  audacity  which  Dr.  Aked  brings 
against  me  for  denying  sin?  It  is  just  the  charge  that  was  brought 
against  Charles  Darwin  when  he  had  the  immodesty  to  declare 
that  the  human  species  was  evolved  from  lower  forms. 

How  was  that  theory  met  by  the  Dr.  Akeds  of  the  time?  Dar- 
win was  ridiculed  and  denounced,  and  nearly  all  the  religious 
world  was  aghast  at  his  folly  and  his  irreverence,  and  his  pre- 
sumption in  advancing  a  theory  which  was  contrary  to  the  teach- 
ings of  Holy  Writ.  But  Darwin's  theory  was  true. 

154 


SOME  OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED 

Darwin's  theory  was  true,  and  I  claim  that  this  theory  is  true. 
Is  it  any  answer  to  tell  me  that  I  am  presumptuous  in  opposing 
the  beliefs  of  great  men  past  and  present?  Darwin  opposed  the 
general  belief,  and  Darwin  was  right  and  the  general  belief  was 
wrong.  Is  it  any  more  reasonable  to  condemn  this  theory  for 
traversing  the  fifty-first  Psalm  than  it  was  to  condemn  Evolution 
for  traversing  the  Book  of  Genesis  ? 

Are  we  never  to  deviate  from  the  beliefs  of  our  forefathers,  be 
the  evidence  against  those  beliefs  never  so  strong?  How,  then, 
shall  knowledge  increase  or  progress  be  possible? 

Presumptuous  to  deny  what  great  men  in  the  past  believed  ?  Then 
the  world  is  flat,  and  the  sun  goes  round  the  world,  and  polygamy 
is  right,  and  Saturday  is  the  Sabbath  day,  and  all  Jews,  Moham- 
medans, Buddhists,  Confucians,  and  pagans  will  be  damned,  and 
the  abolition  of  witch-burning  was  a  mistake,  and  Luther  was 
presumptuous  for  resisting  the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
and  Dr.  Aked  is  presumptuous  for  differing  from  the  Church  of 
England.  In  such  absurdities  does  the  clerical  mind  entangle 
Itself  when  it  tries  to  think. 

Mr.  Marson  says  that  if  he  were  a  burglar  he  would  spend 
some  of  the  money  he  stole  in  paying  lecturers  to  teach  the  doc- 
trine that  men  ought  not  to  be  blamed  for  their  actions.  But  if 
all  men  were  trained  upon  our  principles  there  would  not  be  any 
burglars. 

However,  let  us  see  what  Mr.  Marson  means.  He  means  that 
if  punishment  and  blame  were  abolished  burglars  and  other 
wrongdoers  might  go  scot  free,  and  might  rob,  or  kill,  or  cheat ; 
and  no  one  should  say  them  nay.  But  Mr.  Marson  is  a  clergyman, 
and  does  not  understand. 

It  is  a  strange  notion  this,  that  if  you  do  not  blame  a  man  you 
cannot  interfere  with  him.  We  do  not  blame  a  lunatic:  even  a 
Christian  does  not  blame  a  lunatic.  But  we  do  not  allow  a  mad- 
man to  go  round  with  an  axe  and  murder  people.  We  do  not 
hang  a  madman,  nor  punish  him  in  any  way.  If  a  murderer  is 
proved  to  be  mad  he  is  pardoned  and — restrained. 

So,  although  we  might  not  blame  a  thief,  or  a  sweater,  or  a 
poisoner,  it  does  not  follow  that  we  should  allow  him  to  go  on 
stealing,  or  sweating,  or  murdering. 

We  propose  to  defend  society  from  the  individual ;  but  we  pro- 
pose to  do  more  than  that :  we  propose  to  do  what  the  Christian 
does  not  attempt  to  do — we  propose  to  defend  the  individual  from 
society. 

The  Christian  method  of  dealing  with  the  burglar  is  to  neglect 

155 


NOT  GUILTY 

him  in  his  childhood  and  his  youth,  to  allow  him  to  become  a 
burglar,  from  sheer  lack  of  opportunity  to  become  anything  else, 
and  then  to  lecture  him  and  send  him  to  prison. 

But,  my  Christian  friends,  how  do  you  find  your  system  work  ? 
If  you  tell  Bill  Sykes  he  is  a  bad  man,  that  the  angels  will  not 
love  him,  that  the  fat  successful  sweater  or  idler  will  loathe  and 
despise  him,  and  if  you  send  Bill  to  prison  and  hard  labour  for 
a  term  of  years,  will  it  always  happen  that  William  will  repent 
and  reform,  and  become  a  building  society  or  a  joint-stock  bank 
himself  ? 

Or  do  you  find  that  poor  Bill  hardens  his  heart,  and  hates  you  ; 
and  that  he  comes  out  of  your  shameful  prison,  and  from  your 
cowardly  and  savage  whips  and  chains,  and  burgles  and  drinks 
again,  and  learns  to  carry  a  revolver? 

If  we  want  to  get  rid  of  evil  we  must  remove  the  cause  of  evil. 
It  is  useless  to  punish  the  victim. 

It  is  with  moral  evils  as  with  physical  evils.  When  an  epi- 
demic of  fever  or  smallpox  comes  upon  us  we  do  not  punish  the 
sick,  nor  blame  them.  But  we  isolate  the  sick,  and  we  attack 
the  cause  of  the  sickness,  by  attending  to  matters  of  hygiene  and 
sanitation.  That  is  how  we  ought  to  deal  with  moral  sickness. 

Men  do  not  live  badly  because  they  are  "wicked,"  but  because 
they  are  ignorant.  The  remedy  lies  in  the  study  and  adoption  of 
the  laws  of  the  science  of  human  life. 

If  we  are  to  have  a  moral  people  we  must  first  of  all  have  a 
healthy  people.  If  the  working  classes  are  to  be  made  sober  and 
pure  and  wise,  the  other  classes  must  be  made  honest,  and  to  be 
made  honest  they  must  be  taught  what  honesty  is. 

But  the  Christian  cannot  teach  what  honesty  is  because  he  does 
not  know.  He  cannot  attack  the  causes  of  vice  and  crime,  because 
he  does  not  understand  that  vice  and  crime  are  caused.  He  has 
been  taught  that  men  do  wrong  because  they  will  not  do  right, 
and  that  they  can  do  right  if  they  will. 

The  Christian  blames  the  criminal,  and  punishes  him,  because 
the  Christian  believes  that  the  criminal  has  a  "free  will." 

But  we  should  not  blame  nor  punish  the  criminal,  because  we 
know  that  he  is  a  victim  of  heredity  and  environment.  So  we 
should  restrain  the  criminal,  and  try  to  reform  him;  and  we 
should  attack  the  environment  which  made  him  a  criminal,  and 
is  still  making  more  criminals,  and  we  should  try  to  alter  that 
environment,  and  so  prevent  the  making  of  more  criminals. 

For  the  hardened  criminal,  restraint  may  be  neccesary.  It  may 
be  impossible  to  reform  him.  It  may  be  too  late. 

156 


SOME  OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED 

But  it  is  not  too  late  to  save  millions  of  innocent  children  from 
a  like  disaster  and  disgrace.  It  is  not  too  late  to  prevent  evil  in 
the  future,  though  we  cannot  atone  for  the  evil  wrought  in  the 
past. 

We  know,  and  the  Christian  knows,  that  where  a  murderer  de- 
stroys one  life  society  destroys  thousands.  We  know  that  all 
through  our  pursy  civilisation,  in  all  the  fine  cities  of  our  wealth, 
our  culture,  and  our  boastful  piety,  the  ruin  of  children,  the  pro- 
duction of  monsters,  the  desecration  of  human  souls,  is  going 
steadily  and  ruthlessly  on.  We  know  this,  and  the  Christian 
knows  this;  but  we  propose  to  prevent  it,  to  stop  it,  by  striking 
at  the  root  cause:  the  Christian  hopes  to  check  it  by  lopping  off 
here  and  there  one  of  the  fruits. 

That  is  one  reason  why  I  claim  that  Humanism  is  a  better 
religion  than  Christianity;  that  is  one  reason  why  I  claim  that 
Christianity  is  a  failure. 

What  is  the  cause  of  crime?  The  Christian  does  not  know. 
What  is  the  cause  of  ignorance?  The  Christian  does  not  know. 
What  is  the  cause  of  poverty?  The  Christian  does  not  know. 

For  ages  the  Christians  trusted  to  religion  to  rid  them  of  pesti- 
lence. Science  taught  them  to  prevent  pestilence.  Now  they 
trust  to  religion  to  rid  the  world  of  vice  and  crime.  It  is  the  same 
old  error.  Science  has  shown  us  the  causes  of  vice  and  crime: 
science  teaches  us  that  we  must  attack  the  causes. 

But  the  world  is  very  ignorant  in  affairs  of  moral  sanitation; 
and  has  an  almost  religious  veneration  for  the  sacredness  of 
Grand  Ducal  ducks. 

As  for  the  children — why  do  not  their  parents  take  care  of 
them?  Perhaps  because  the  parents  were  neglected  by  their 
parents. 

And  which  is  the  better,  to  go  back  for  a  dozen  generations 
blaming  parents,  or  to  begin  now  and  teach  and  save  the  children  ? 


CHAPTER  FIFTEEN 
THE  DEFENCE  OF 
THE  BOTTOM  DOG 

RIENDS,  I  write  to  defend  the  Bottom  Dog.    It  is  a  task 
»  stagger  the  stoutest  heart.     With  nearly  all  the  power, 
arning,  and  wealth  of  the  world  against  him ;  with  all  the 
precedents  of  human  history  against  him ;  with  law,  relig- 
ion, custom,  and  public  sentiment  against  him,  the  unfortunate 
victim's  only  hope  is  in  the  justice  of  his  case.    I  would  he  had  a 
better  advocate,  as  I  trust  he  some  day  will. 

The  prosecution  claim  a  monopoly  of  learning,  and  virtue,  and 
modesty.  They  may  be  justified  in  this.  I  do  not  grudge  them 
such  authority  as  their  shining  merits  may  lend  to  a  case  so  un- 
just, so  feeble,  and  so  cruel  as  theirs. 

Many  of  the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  are  Christian  minis- 
ters. They  uphold  blame  and  punishment,  in  direct  defiance  of 
the  teaching  and  example  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  founder  of  their  religion  bade  them  love  their  enemies. 
He  taught  them  that  if  one  stole  their  coat  they  should  give  him 
their  cloak  also.  He  prevented  the  punishment  of  the  woman 
taken  in  adultery,  and  called  upon  him  without  sin  to  cast  the 
first  stone.  He  asked  God  to  forgive  his  murderers,  because  they 
knew  not  what  they  did.  In  not  one  of  these  cases  did  Christ 
say  a  word  in  favour  of  punishment  nor  of  blame. 

Christians  pray  to  be  forgiven,  as  they  forgive;  they  ask  God 
to  "have  mercy  upon  us  miserable  sinners";  they  ask  Him  to 
"succour,  help,  and  comfort  all  that  are  in  danger,  necessity,  and 
tribulation,"  and  to  "show  His  pity  upon  all  prisoners  and  cap- 
tives" ;  how,  then,  can  Christians  advocate  the  blame  of  the  weak, 
and  the  punishment  of  the  persecuted  and  unfortunate? 

I  suggest  that  men  who  do  not  understand  their  own  religion 
are  not  likely  to  understand  a  religion  to  which  they  are  opposed. 

As  I  am  generally  known  as  a  poor  man's  advocate,  I  ask  you 
to  remember  that  I  am  not  now  appearing  for  the  poor,  but  for 
the  wrong-doer.  There  are  many  very  poor  who  do  no  serious 
wrong;  there  are  many  amongst  the  rich,  the  successful,  and  the 
respectable,  whose  lives  are  evil. 

158 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  THE  BOTTOM  DOG 

One  does  not  live  half  a  century  without  knowing  one's  world 
pretty  well.  I  know  the  honourable  and  noble  lord,  full  of  gout, 
vainglory,  and  stealthy  vices ;  I  know  the  fashionable  divine,  with 
pride  in  his  heart,  milk  on  his  lips,  and  cobwebs  in  his  brain;  I 
know  the  smug  respectability,  with  low  cunning  under  his  silk 
hat,  and  chicanery  buttoned  up  in  his  irreproachable  frock  coat; 
I  know  the  fine  lady,  beautiful  as  a  poppy,  who  is  haughty  from 
sheer  lack  of  sense;  I  know  the  glib  orator  of  mean  acts  and 
golden  words;  I  know  the  elected  person  of  much  dignity  and 
little  wit,  and  the  woman  of  much  loveliness  and  little  love. 

I  have  to  defend  men  and  women  whose  deeds  revolt  me,  whose 
presence  disgusts  me.  I  have  to  defend  them  against  the  world, 
and  against  my  own  prejudices  and  aversion.  For  I  also  have  a 
heredity  and  an  environment,  and  therefore  crochets,  and  pas- 
sions, and  antipathies.  Though  I  can  defend  all  victims  of  hered- 
ity and  environment,  though  I  can  demand  justice  for  the  worst, 
yet  my  nature  loathes  the  bully  and  the  tyrant,  and  still  more  does 
it  loathe  the  mean :  the  man  of  the  Judas  spirit,  who  barters  chil- 
dren's lives,  and  women's  souls,  and  the  manhood  of  cities,  for 
dirty  pieces  of  silver.  Such  a  wretch  is  not  to  be  hated,  is  not 
to  be  punished :  he  is  to  be  pitied  and  I  am  to  defend  him.  But 
when  I  think  of  him  my  soul  is  sick.  I  feel  as  if  a  worm  had 
crawled  over  me.  I  cannot  help  this.  I  cannot  endure  him.  I 
am  not  big  enough :  I  lack  the  grace.  I  pity  him  profoundly ;  but 
my  pity  is  cold.  I  pity  the  devil-fish,  and  the  conger  eel;  but  I 
could  not  touch  them.  They  are  repulsive  to  me. 

It  is  very  difficult  for  us  to  separate  the  man  from  his  acts. 
It  is  very  difficult  for  us  to  hate  and  to  loathe  the  acts,  without 
hating  and  loathing  the  man.  This  is  the  old,  old  Adam  in  us, 
rebelling  against  the  new  altruism  and  the  new  reason.  We  are 
still  a  long  way  behind  our  ideals. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  plan  to  flatter  the  world.  I  know  you,  my 
brothers  and  sisters,  too  well  for  that.  There  is  a  strong  family 
resemblance  between  us.  Your  ancestors,  also,  had  tails.  And 
then,  like  Thoreau,  "I  know  what  mean  and  sneaking  lives  many 
of  you  lead."  The  majority  of  you,  indeed,  are  still  little  bet- 
ter than  barbarians.  The  mass  of  you  waste  your  lives  and  starve 
your  souls  for  the  sake  of  beads  and  scalps,  and  flesh  and  fire- 
water. Your  heroes  are,  too,  often,  mere  prowling  appetites,  or 
solemn  vanities,  ravenous  for  pudding  and  praise;  mere  tailor- 
made  effigies,  to  stick  stars  upon,  or  feathers  into;  mere  painted 
idols  for  ignorance  to  worship ;  embroidered  serene-emptiness  for 
flunkeys  to  bow  down  to :  kings  and  things  of  shreds  and  patches. 

159 


NOT  GUILTY 

Yes.  We  are  all  painfully  human,  and  under  a  regime  of  blame 
and  punishment  may  count  ourselves  extremely  lucky  if  we  have 
never  been  found  out. 

Do  not  let  us  stand  in  too  great  awe  of  our  ancestors.  They 
also  trafficked  and  junketted  in  Vanity  Fair.  The  prosecution 
lay  stress  upon  the  universal  custom  and  experience  of  mankind. 
The  world  has  never  ordered  its  life  by  rules  of  wisdom  and  un- 
derstanding. It  has  paid  more  court  to  the  rich  than  to  the 
good,  and  more  heed  to  the  noisy  than  to  the  wise.  The  world 
has  imprisoned  as  many  honest  men  as  rogues,  has  slain  more  in- 
nocent than  guilty,  has  decorated  more  criminals  than  heroes, 
has  believed  a  thousand  times  less  truth  than  lies.  Is  it  not  so, 
men  and  women?  Does  not  common  experience  support  the 
charge  ? 

Let  us,  then,  understand  each  other,  before  we  go  any  farther. 
The  glory  of  manhood  and  womanhood  is  not  to  have  something, 
but  to  be  something;  is  not  to  get  something,  but  to  give  some- 
thing; is  not  to  rule  but  to  serve. 

The  greatness  of  a  nation  does  not  lie  in  its  wealth  and  power, 
but  in  the  character  of  its  men  and  women.  With  greatness  in  the 
people  all  the  rest  will  follow,  as  surely  as  when  the  greatness 
of  the  people  wanes  the  rest  will  be  quickly  lost.  The  history  of 
all  great  empires  tells  us  this:  Japan  is  just  now  repeating  the 
lesson. 

What  is  it  most  men  strive  for  ?  Wealth  and  fame.  These  are 
prizes  for  little  men,  not  for  big  men.  They  are  prizes  that  often 
inflict  untold  misery  in  the  winning,  and  are  nearly  always  a 
curse  to  the  winner.  Vice  and  crime  are  fostered  by  luxury  and 
idleness  on  the  one  hand,  and  by  ignorance  and  misery  on  the 
other  hand.  The  poor  are  poor  that  the  rich  may  be  rich;  and 
the  riches  and  the  poverty  are  a  curse  to  both. 

Consider  all  the  vain  pride  and  barbaric  pomp  of  wealth  and 
fashion,  and  all  the  mean  envy  of  the  weakly  snobs  who  revere 
them,  and  would  sell  their  withered  souls  to  possess  them.  Is 
this  decorative  tomfoolery,  are  this  apish  swagger  and  blazoned 
snobbery  worthy  of  men  and  women? 

The  powdered  flunkeys,  the  gingerbread  coaches,  the  panto- 
mime processions,  the  trumpery  orders  and  fatuous  titles:  are 
they  any  nobler  or  more  sensible  than  the  paint,  the  tom-toms,  and 
the  Brummagen  jewels  of  darkest  Africa? 

And  the  cost !  We  are  too  prone  to  reckon  cost  in  cash.  We 
are  too  prone  to  forget  that  cash  is  but  a  symbol  of  things  more 
precious.  We  bear  too  tamely  all  the  bowing  and  kow-towing, 

160 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  THE  BOTTOM  DOG 

all  the  fiddling  and  fifing,  all  the  starring  and  gartering,  and  be- 
feathering  and  begemming,  all  the  gambling  and  racing,  the  salut- 
ing and  fanfaring,  the  marching  and  counter-marching,  all  the 
raking  in  of  dividends,  and  building  up  of  mansions,  all  the  sweat- 
ing and  rackrenting,  all  the  heartless  vanity,  and  brainless  luxury, 
and  gilded  vice:  we  should  think  of  them  more  sternly  did  we 
count  up  what  they  cost  in  men  and  women  and  children,  what 
they  cost  in  brawn  and  brain,  and  honour  and  love,  what  they 
cost  in  human  souls — what  they  cost  in  Bottom  Dogs. 

Happiness  cannot  be  stolen;  nor  won  by  cheating,  as  though 
life  were  a  game  of  cards.  The  man  who  would  be  happy  must 
find  his  duty,  and  do  it.  In  no  other  way  can  man  or  woman  find 
real  happiness,  under  the  sun.  But  the  world,  so  far,  has  quite 
a  different  creed.  And  the  common  experience,  on  which  the 
Christians  so  much  depend,  is  not  on  the  side  of  the  angels.  And 
that  is  why  the  Bottom  Dogs  are  so  numerous,  and  why  so  many 
of  us  lead  "such  mean  and  sneaking  lives." 

Descendants  of  barbarians  and  beasts,  we  have  not  yet  con- 
quered the  greed  and  folly  of  our  bestial  and  barbarous  inherit- 
ance. Our  nature  is  an  unweeded  garden.  Our  hereditary  soil 
is  rank.  Talk  about  the  trouble  of  bringing  up  children :  what  is 
that  to  the  trouble  of  educating  one's  ancestors  ?  O,  the  difficulty 
I  have  had  with  mine. 

My  friends:  you  have  read  my  statement  of  the  case  for  the 
Bottom  Dog ;  you  have  read  the  arguments  I  have  used  in  support 
of  that  statement :  you  have  read  the  evidence,  and  you  have  read 
my  answers  to  the  arguments  of  the  other  side. 

I  claim  to  have  proved  that  all  human  actions  are  ruled  by 
heredity  and  environment,  that  man  is  not  responsible  for  his 
heredity  and  environment,  and  that  therefore  all  blame  and  all 
punishment  are  unjust. 

I  claim  to  have  proved  that  blame  and  punishment,  besides  be- 
ing unjust  are  ineffectual. 

I  claim  that  the  arguments  which  apply  to  heredity  and  environ- 
ment apply  also  to  the  soul,  for  since  man  did  not  create  the  soul 
he  cannot  be  responsible  for  its  acts. 

I  claim  to  have  explained  the  so-called  "mysteries"  of  con- 
science, and  of  the  "dual  personality,"  and  to  have  proved  them 
to  be  the  natural  action  of  heredity  and  environment. 

I  claim  to  have  proved  that  morality  comes  through  natural 
evolution,  and  not  by  any  kind  of  super-natural  revelation. 

I  claim  to  have  proved  that  the  argument  from  universal  expe- 

1G1 


NOT  GUILTY 

rience  is  fallacious,  and  to  have  shown  that  universal  experience 
has  misled  us  in  the  manner  of  human  responsibility  as  in  so  many 
other  matters. 

I  claim  to  have  proved  that  the  theory  here  advocated  is  based 
upon  justice  and  reason,  and  is  more  moral  and  beneficient  than 
the  Christian  religion,  under  which  so  much  wrong,  and  waste, 
and  misery  continue  to  exist  unchecked  and  unrebuked. 

I  claim  to  have  proved  that  the  prosecution  do  not  understand 
the  case,  and  that  their  arguments  are  for  the  most  part  mere 
misrepresentations  or  misunderstandings  of  the  issues  and  the 
facts. 

It  remains  for  me  now  to  say  a  few  words  as  to  the  wrongs 
suffered  by  my  unfortunate  client ;  and  as  to  the  necessity  for  so 
altering  the  laws  and  customs  of  society  as  to  prevent  the  perpe- 
tration of  all  this  cruelty  and  injustice ;  of  all  this  waste  of  human 
love,  and  human  beauty,  and  human  power. 

We  are  sometimes  asked  to  think  imperially:  it  would  be  bet- 
ter to  think  universally.  Illiminitable  as  is  the  universe,  it  appears 
in  all  its  parts  to  obey  the  same  laws.  Its  suns  may  be  told  by 
millions ;  but  matter  and  force  compose  and  rule  them  all.  Car- 
lyle  spoke  of  the  contrast  between  heaven  and  Vauxhall;  but 
Vauxhall  is  in  the  heavens,  by  virtue  of  the  same  law  that  there 
holds  Canopus  and  the  Pleiades.  We  think  of  the  dawn-star  as 
of  something  heavenly  pure,  and  of  the  earth  as  grey  in  sorrow 
and  sin;  but  the  earth  is  a  star — a  planet,  bright  and  beautiful 
as  Venus  in  a  purple  evening  sky. 

We  gaze  with  wondering  awe  at  the  loveliness  and  mystery  of 
the  Galaxy,  that  bent  beam  of  glory  whose  motes  are  suns,  that 
luminous  path  of  dreams  whose  jewels  are  alive;  but  we  forget 
that  Whitechapel,  and  Oldham,  and  Chicago,  and  the  Black 
Country,  are  in  the  Milky  Way.  In  that  awful  ocean  of  Space 
are  many  islands;  but  they  are  all  akin.  In  the  "roaring  loom 
of  time."  howsoever  the  colours  may  change,  the  pattern  vary,  the 
piece  is  all  one  piece ;  it  is  knit  together,  thread  to  thread.  All 
men  are  brothers.  From  the  age  beyond  the  Aryans  the  threads 
are  woven  and  joined  together.  All  of  us  had  ancestors  with 
tails.  All  the  myriads  of  human  creatures,  since  the  first  ape  stood 
erect,  have  been  like  leaves  upon  one  tree,  nourished  by  the  same 
sap,  fed  from  the  same  root,  warmed  by  the  same  sun,  washed 
by  the  same  rains.  All  our  polities,  philosophies,  and  religions, 
grow  out  of  each  other.  We  can  never  fully  understand  any  one 
of  them  until  we  know  the  whole.  Comparative  anatomy,  com- 

1C2 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  THE  BOTTOM  DOG 

parative  philology,  comparative  mythology,  all  comparative  sci- 
ences, tell  us  the  same  story  of  growth,  of  evolution,  of  kinship. 
Babylon  and  Egypt,  India  and  Persia,  Greece  and  Rome,  Goth- 
land and  Scandinavia,  Britain  and  Gaul;  Osiris,  Krishna,  Con- 
fucius, Brahma,  Zoroaster,  Buddha,  Christ,  Mahomet:  all  are 
parts  of  one  whole,  all  parts  related  each  to  other.  The  oldest 
nations  speak  in  our  languages  to-day,  the  oldest  savages  survive 
in  our  bodies,  the  oldest  gods  have  part  in  our  religious  forms 
and  ceremonies,  the  oldest  superstitions  and  faults  and  follies, 
still  obscure  our  minds  and  impede  our  action.  We  cannot  thrust 
the  dead  aside  and  stand  alone :  the  dead  are  part  of  us.  W«  can- 
not take  a  man  and  isolate  him,  and  judge  and  understand  him,  as 
though  he  were  a  new  and  special  creation.  He  is  of  kin  to  all  the 
living  and  the  dead.  He  stands  one  figure  in  the  great  human  pag- 
eant, and  cannot  be  taken  out  of  the  picture :  cannot  be  cut  out 
from  the  background — that  background  of  a  thousand  ages,  and 
of  innumerable  women  and  men.  He  belongs  to  the  great  human 
family :  he,  also,  is  in  the  Milky  Way. 

Old  families,  and  noble  families  are  made  of  parchment  or  pa- 
per: there  is  but  one  real  family  of  flesh  and  blood,  and  that 
reaches  back  to  the  clot  of  jelly  in  the  sea,  and  we  all  belong  to  it. 

When  I  hear  some  little  Brick  Lane  Brother  talking  about  the 
true  faith,  as  taught  in  a  tin  chapel  in  Upper  Tooting,  I  think  of 
the  star-readers  of  the  Aryan  hills,  of  the  dead  gods,  and  the 
obliterated  beliefs  of  ancient  conquerors,  long  since  eaten  by 
worms,  and  of  the  shrivelled  corpse  in  the  museum  who  has  lain 
grinning  in  his  sandhole  for  thirty  thousand  years,  amongst  his 
grave  pots,  and  ghost  charms,  and  the  uneaten  food  for  the 
long  journey  to  the  great  beyond.  When  I  hear  honourable 
members  prating  in  the  House  about  "Imperial  questions,"  I 
think  of  the  famished  seamstress,  the  unemployed  docker,  the  girl 
with  the  phossy  jaw,  whom  the  honourable  gentleman  "repre- 
sents." When  I  read  of  the  gorgeous  stage-management  of  the 
royal  pageants,  I  remember  the  graves  of  the  Balaclava  men, 
in  the  Manchester  workhouse  field,  where  the  sods  were  spread 
out  level  over  the  neglected  dead.  When  I  see  beautiful  sculp- 
tures and  paintings  of  Greek  womanhood,  I  remember  how, 
coming  out  of  the  art  gallery  where  I  had  been  looking  at  the 
picture  of  Andromache,  I  saw  a  white-haired  old  Englishwoman 
carrying  a  great  bag  of  cinders  on  her  bent  old  back.  When  I 
hear  the  angelic  voices  of  the  choirs,  and  see  the  golden  plate 
on  cathedral  altars,  I  ask  myself  questions  about  that  Bridge  of 
Sighs  where  London  women  drown  themselves  in  their  despair. 

163 


NOT  GUILTY 

and  about  that  child  in  the  workhouse  school  who  tamed  a 
mouse  because  he  must  have  something  to  love.  When  a  callow 
preacher  babbles  to  his  grown-up  congregation  about  sin  and 
human  nature,  I  remember  the  men  and  women  I  have  known: 
the  soldiers,  the  navvies,  the  colliers,  the  doctors,  the  lawyers, 
the  authors,  the  artists;  I  remember  the  dancing-rooms  in  the 
garrison  town,  and  the  girls,  and  how  they  were  womanly  in 
their  degradation,  and  sweet  in  spite  of  their  shame;  and  I 
wondered  what  the  reverend  gentleman  would  answer  them  if 
they  spoke  to  him  as  they  often  spoke  to  me,  in  words  that  were 
straight  as  blades,  and  cut  as  deep. 

And  often,  when  I  mix  with  the  crowds  in  the  streets,  or  at 
the  theatre,  or  in  public  assemblies,  I  feel  that  I  am  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  haunted  past,  and  the  whole  human  story  unfolds 
itself  to  my  mind:  the  primeval  savage  with  "his  fell  of  hair," 
fighting  with  other  savages,  under  "branching  elm,  star-proof"; 
the  Ethiopian  warrior  in  his  battle  chariot;  the  bent  slave,  toiling 
on  the  pyramid;  the  armed  knight  errant,  foraying,  and  redress- 
ing sentimental  wrongs;  the  fearless  Viking,  crossing  oceans  in 
his  open  galley,  to  discover  continents ;  the  gladiator  in  the  Roman 
arena;  the  Greek  Stoics,  discoursing  at  the  fountain ;  Drake  singe- 
ing the  King  of  Spain's  beard;  St.  Francis  preaching  to  the 
birds;  the  Buddha,  giving  his  body  to  the  famished  tigress;  the 
Aryan  at  the  plough,  the  Phoenician  in  his  bark,  the  Californian 
seeking  gold,  the  whaler  amongst  the  ice,  the  ancient  Briton  in 
his  woad — all  the  mysterious  and  fascinating  human  drama  of 
love  and  hate,  of  hunger  and  riches,  and  laughter  and  tears,  and 
songs  and  sobbings,  and  dancing  and  drunkenness,  and  marriage 
and  battle,  and  heroism  and  cowardice,  and  murder  and  robbery, 
and  the  quest  of  God. 

That  wonderful  human  mystery-play,  how  softly  it  touches  us, 
how  deeply  it  moves  us,  with  its  hum  of  myriad  voices,  its  vision 
of  white  arms,  and  flashing  weapons,  and  beckoning  fingers,  and 
asking  looks,  and  the  ripple  of  its  laughter,  like  the  music  of 
hidden  streams  in  leafy  woods,  and  the  lisp  of  its  unnumbered 
feet,  and  the  weird  rhythm  of  its  war  songs,  and  the  pathos  of 
its  joy-bells,  and  the  pity  of  its  follies,  and  its  failures,  and  its 
crimes — the  pity;  "the  pity  of  it,  lago,  the  pity  of  it." 

Possessed,  then  by  this  dreaming  habit,  this  Janus-like  bent 
of  mind,  I  cannot  think  of  the  Bottom  Dog  apart  from  the  whole 
bloodstained,  tearstained  tragedy  of  man's  inhumanity  to  man. 
For  the  Bottom  Dog  is  a  child  of  all  the  ages,  he  plays  his  part 
in  a  drama  whereof  the  scene  is  laid  hi  the  Milky  Way.  He 

164 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  THE  BOTTOM  DOG 

recalls  to  us  the  long  wavering  war  between  darkness  and  light, 
the  life  and  death  struggle  of  the  brute  to  be  a  man,  the  painful 
never-ceasing  effort  of  man  to  understand. 

We  cannot  look  back  over  that  trampled  and  sanguinary  field 
of  history  without  a  shudder ;  but  we  must  look.  It  reaches  back 
into  the  impenetrable  mists  of  time,  it  reaches  forward  to  our 
own  thresholds,  which  still  are  wet  with  blood  and  tears,  and  on 
every  rood  of  it,  in  ghastly  horror,  are  heaped  the  corpses  of  the 
men,  and  women,  and  children  slain  by  the  righteous,  in  the 
name  of  justice,  and  in  the  name  of  God.  Though  the  gods 
perished,  though  the  vane  of  justice  veered  until  right  became 
wrong,  and  wrong  right,  yet  the  crimes  continued,  the  horrible 
mistakes  were  repeated;  the  holy,  and  the  noble,  and  cultivated 
still  cried  for  their  brother's  blood,  still  trampled  the  infants 
under  their  holy  feet,  still  forced  the  maidens  and  the  mothers  to 
slavery  and  shame. 

Men  and  women,  is  it  not  true? 

From  fear  of  ghosts  and  devils,  and  for  the  glory  of  the  gods 
of  India,  of  Babylon,  of  Egypt,  of  Greece,  of  Rome,  of  France, 
of  Spain,  of  England,  were  not  millions  tortured,  and  burnt,  and 
whipped,  and  hanged,  and  crucified? 

Witchcraft,  and  heresy,  idolatry,  sacrifice,  propitiation,  divine 
vengeance;  what  seas  of  blood,  what  holocausts  of  crime,  what 
long-drawn  tragedies  of  agony  and  bloody  sweat  do  these  names 
not  recall?  And  they  were  all  mistakes!  They  were  all  night- 
mares, born  of  ignorance  and  superstition !  We  have  awakened 
from  those  nightmares.  Our  gods  no  longer  lust  after  human 
blood.  We  know  that  heresy  is  merely  difference  of  education, 
that  there  never  was  a  witch ;  we  know  that  all  those  millions  wept 
and  bled  and  died  for  nothing :  that  they  were  tortured,  enslaved, 
degraded  and  murdered,  by  the  holy,  through  ignorance,  and 
fear,  and  superstition. 

If  we  turn  from  the  crimes  and  blunders  of  prophets  and  of 
priests  to  the  laws  of  Kings  and  Parliaments,  we  find  the  same 
ignorance,  the  same  ferocity,  the  same  futility.  I  could  fill  a 
bigger  book  than  mine  with  the  mere  catalogue  of  the  punish- 
ments and  the  instruments  of  torture  invented  by  tyrants,  and 
land-grabbers,  and  superior  persons  for  the  protection  of  their 
privileges,  and  their  plunder,  and  their  luxury  and  ease.  For 
thousands  of  years  the  whip,  the  chain,  the  rack,  the  gibbet,  and 
the  sword,  have  been  used  to  uphold  the  laws  made  by  robbers, 
and  by  idlers,  and  by  ambitious  lunatics,  to  punish  the  "crimes"  of 
the  ignorant  and  the  weak. 

165 


NOT  GUILTY 

Men  and  women,  is  it  not  true? 

And  all  the  agony  and  blood  and  shame  were  ineffectual.  And 
always  blame  and  punishment  bred  hate,  and  savagery,  and  more 
crime. 

"But  it  is  different  to-day." 

It  is  the  same  to-day.  The  laws  to-day  are  defences  of  the 
foolish  rich  against  the  ignorant  and  hungry  poor.  The  laws 
to-day,  like  the  laws  of  the  past,  make  more  criminals  than  they 
punish.  The  laws  keep  the  people  ignorant  and  poor,  and  the 
rich  idle  and  vicious.  The  laws  to-day,  as  in  the  day  of  Isaiah, 
enable  the  rich  to  "add  field  to  field,  until  the  people  have  no 
room."  The  laws  to-day  sacrifice  a  thousand  innocent  children 
to  preserve  one  useful,  lazy,  unhappy,  superior  person.  The  laws 
to-day  punish  as  a  criminal  the  child  who  steals  a  loaf,  or  a  pair 
of  boots,  and  honour  as  a  grandee  the  man  whose  greed  and 
folly  keep  the  workers  off  the  land,  and  treble  the  rents  in  the 
filthy  and  indecent  slums  where  age  has  no  reverence,  and  toil 
no  ease,  and  where  shame  has  laid  its  hand  upon  the  girl  child's 
breast. 

What  was  the  old  denunciation  of  those  who  cried  "peace, 
peace,  when  there  is  no  peace,"  and  what  shall  we  say  of  those 
priests  and  holy  men  who  cry  "morality,  morality,"  where  there 
is  no  morality,  where  usury  and  exploitation  art>  honoured  arts : 
where  crime  and  vice  are  taught  to  the  children  as  in  a  school? 

If  you  sow  tares,  can  you  reap  wheat?  If  you  sow  hate 
can  you  reap  love?  If  you  sow  wrong  can  you  reap  right?  If 
you  teach  and  practise  knavery,  can  you  ask  for  purity  and  virtue  ? 

The  laws  were  made  by  ignorant  and  dishonest  men,  they  are 
administered  by  men  ignorant  and  selfish ;  they  are  dishonest  laws ; 
good  for  neither  rich  nor  poor;  evil  in  their  conception,  evil  in 
their  enforcement,  evil  in  their  results. 

There  need  not  be  any  such  things  as  poverty  and  ignorance  in 
the  world.  The  earth  is  bounteous,  and  yields  enough,  and  more 
than  enough,  for  all. 

Men  and  women :  I  beg  of  you  to  do  all  that  is  in  your  power 
to  change  the  unjust  laws,  and  the  uncharitable  and  unreasonable 
opinions,  which  make  the  deadly  environment  that  fosters  vice 
and  crime. 

For,  besides  that  the  laws  are  unjust,  that  the  teachings  of  our 
superior  persons  are  untrue,  that  blame  and  punishment  must  fail, 
as  they  have  always  failed,  there  is  the  awful  waste — the  waste 
of  life,  and  love,  of  beauty  and  power  that  the  present  cruel 
system  entails. 

166 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  THE  BOTTOM  DOG 

Think  of  the  loveliness  of  a  good  woman,  the  blessing  of 
her;  think  of  the  sweetness  and  the  joy  of  an  innocent  child,  of 
the  value  and  nobility  of  an  honest  man.  Picture  to  yourself 
the  kind  of  woman  you  would  wish  your  daughter  to  be,  the  kind 
of  man  you  would  wish  your  son  to  be.  Then  remember  what 
good  or  bad  environment  can  make  of  the  young. 

I  tell  you  there  is  hardly  a  battered  drab,  a  broken  pauper,  a 
hardened  thief,  a  hopeless  drunkard,  a  lurking  tramp,  a  hooligan, 
but  who  might  have  been  an  honest  and  a  useful  citizen  under  fair 
conditions. 

Good  women :  if  ever  you  felt  the  thrill  of  a  dear  child's  fingers 
on  your  throat  or  breast,  think  what  millions  of  such  children 
in  our  cities  must  become. 

Good  men:  if  you  honour  womanhood,  if  you  love  your 
daughters  and  your  wives,  think  of  the  women  and  the  girls  in 
the  streets,  in  the  fields,  in  the  factories,  and  in  the  jails,  and 
then  look  into  your  mirrors  for  a  friend  to  save  them. 

Men  and  women :  as  the  little  children  are  now  the  ruffian  and 
the  harlot  once  were;  as  the  ruffian  and  the  harlot  are  now 
millions  of  helpless  children  must  become  unless  you  give  them 
sympathy  and  aid. 

It  is  no  use  looking  for  help  to  heaven :  we  must  look  upon  the 
earth.  It  is  no  use  asking  God  to  help  us :  we  must  help  ourselves. 

My  friends:  for  the  sake  of  good  men,  who  are  better  than 
their  gods ;  for  the  sake  of  good  women,  who  are  the  pride  and 
glory  of  the  world;  for  the  sake  of  the  dear  children,  who  are 
sweeter  to  us  than  the  sunshine  or  the  flowers;  for  the  sake  of 
the  generation  not  yet  spoiled  or  lost ;  for  the  sake  of  the  nations 
yet  unborn;  in  the  names  of  justice,  of  reason  and  truth,  I  ask 
you  for  a  verdict  of  Not  Guilty. 


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